


Thomas and the Earl of Findlater

by Alex51324



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen, Secret Past, inheritance drama, long lost father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 46,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex51324/pseuds/Alex51324
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Earl of Findlater turns up at Downton Abbey with news that will change Thomas and O'Brien's lives forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on titles/inheritance and history:  
> 1\. According to a bit of research I did, a Scottish title (but not an English, Welsh, or Irish one) actually can be inherited in this way. “Legitimatio per matrimonium subsequens” is the legal term for it. I couldn’t find a lot of detail on it, so it may be that there are legal restrictions that would make what occurs in this story impossible, but to the best of my knowledge, the primary plot device of this story is consistent with reality, though extremely unlikely.  
> 2\. I chose a real-but-extinct title to minimize the amount of material I would have to make up (particularly names, geography, etc.), but at the same time to avoid trampling over real historical personages. Although it sounds like something Dickens would do, the Earl of Findlater is a genuine title that became extinct in 1811. Oglivy is, likewise, the real surname of the last holders of the title (according to some sources. Others give something different; I decided not to worry about it). If the Earl of Findlater has no subsidiary titles, his inheriting son would correctly be styled “Lord Oglivy.” Apart from names and geography, the original characters in this story have no connection to the real historical figures who are their putative ancestors. I did learn, after choosing the name, that the historical 7th (and last) Earl of Findlater was rumored to be a homosexual, and decided to hint at a familial predisposition for same as the reason the family finds themselves so strapped for an heir.  
> 3\. In actuality, Huntingtower Castle ceased to be occupied by in the mid-1700’s and so was not subjected to Victorian “improvement.” The house that the family used throughout the 18th century was attached to a different title, with a different line of inheritance. I decided that if the Findlater title had been saved from extinction in the manner suggested here, the 8th Earl of Findlater would liked have moved back into the old ancestral pile and remodeled it for modern occupancy. Since there was, in history, no Eighth Earl, the new wing described here as having been added by him is entirely fictional. (And, in our reality, Huntingtower Castle is of some historical interest as a rare example of medieval domestic architecture that the Victorians did not mess around with. It can be rented out for weddings.) 
> 
> Notes on Language:
> 
> 1\. Today, today terms like “natural parent” and “natural child” are most often used to distinguish between a biological relationship and an adoptive one, in a way that is generally felt to be pejorative to the latter. In earlier times, “natural parent” or “natural child” was a euphemism for illegitimacy, and was among the most polite possible ways to refer to such a relationship. It is in this sense that I have used the terms “natural father” and “natural son” in this story.

“I realized it’s a strange tale, and the news is bound to bring some disruption on your household,” the visitor concluded apologetically. “Our family was hit very hard by the war, you see. My brother and both of his sons were killed. And I had no—well, that is, I hadn’t married before the war, and now there’s…no prospect of that, if you take my meaning.”

“Yes, I understand completely,” Grantham said, to forestall further details. It had been obvious when Findlater walked into the room, leaning heavily on a cane, that he was wounded in the upper thigh. It required little imagination to fill in the horrifying blanks.

“So I’d be glad of the chance to get to know the boy. Well. Man, I suppose he is now. And make some provision for him, of course.”

“Of course,” Grantham said. “What’s the fellow’s name? I’ll have Carson bring him, if you’d like to speak with him here.”

“Thank you. It’s Tom, actually. After me.”

Grantham drew in his breath sharply. If it was Tom Branson he meant—well, the meeting would be delayed a bit, but it would solve any number of other problems. And Findlater _had_ specified an _Irish_ housemaid. “Er—and the surname?”

“He uses the surname of an aunt’s husband, apparently,” Findlater said. “Barrow.”

“Thomas Barrow,” Grantham said numbly, his hopes crushed just as quickly as they had arisen. 

“Yes. I do hope he’s still employed here?”

#

At Carson’s determined approach, Thomas quickly stubbed out his cigarette and straightened his spine. It wasn’t as if he was doing anything _wrong_. He had as much right to stand in the courtyard smoking as anyone. And he wasn’t even under Carson’s direct supervision, not now that he was valet. 

“His lordship wishes to see you in the library,” Carson announced frostily.

“What about?” He hadn’t done anything to be called on the carpet for, not recently, and if it was anything to do with his job, Grantham’s dressing room would have been the natural place.

“He didn’t specify.” 

Buttoning his jacket and straightening his cuffs, Thomas hurried to the library. 

“Thomas,” Lord Grantham said when he arrived. “This gentleman is the Earl of Findlater. He wishes to speak to you about a private matter.”

“Yes, my lord. My lords,” he added, with a glance at the stranger. The only sort of “private matter” that Thomas could imagine an earl wanting to talk with him about was hardly the sort of thing Lord Grantham would be a party to, and anyway, Thomas was quite certain he had never set eyes on the man before in his life. He was about Grantham’s age, tall and thin, with a neurasthenic appearance and a carved walking stick leaning against his knee. 

“I’ll give you some privacy,” Grantham said, and took himself out.

“Thomas,” Findlater said. “May I call you Thomas?”

“If you like, my lord.” Since he was a valet now, he ought to be called Barrow, but nobody at Downton ever seemed to remember, and he couldn’t really insist on it with a guest. 

“Please, sit.” He gestured at the armchair that Grantham had recently vacated.

Thomas sat, thinking that this encounter was rapidly going from ‘a little odd’ to ‘downright bizarre.’ 

“This is—well. I understand you were raised by your maternal aunt and her husband.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Kathleen and George Barrow, my lord.” 

“And they passed away in 1905,” Lord Findlater continued. 

“Yes.” It seemed like Findlater was attempting to establish his identity. Something about an inheritance, maybe? They’d had nothing to leave at the time, but Mum had been in service for a bit, before she was married. A small legacy from a former employer wasn’t out of the question, although it would make more sense for Findlater to send a solicitor for that. “Diphtheria, my lord,” he said, thinking that some un-asked-for details would help to prove that he was the Thomas Barrow in question. “They raised me as their own, since they had no children of their own.” He added that in case there was some question as to whether he was entitled to whatever it was, since he wasn’t their real son. 

“Yes, good.” He hesitated. “What do you know about your true parents?”

Oh. That made even more sense, really, that whatever it was might be to do with them. “My mother died in childbirth, my lord. She was called Sarah. Her maiden name was Byrnes.” He didn’t know her married name, and suspected she hadn’t had one. 

A shadow passed over Findlater’s face. After a moment, he asked, “And your father?”

“I was named for him, my lord,” he said slowly. “Beyond that, I don’t know. It seemed disrespectful to my adopted parents to ask many questions.” Surely loyalty to the people who raised him would sound like a more respectable reason for knowing next to nothing about his real father than that he was probably illegitimate.

“Of course; I understand.” He hesitated again. “Your mother was employed at Huntingtower, our estate in Scotland, when she was young. She was a housemaid.”

Thomas nodded. “I knew she’d been in service, but not the name of the house.” It was sounding more and more like there might be a legacy. Why anyone would leave a legacy to a housemaid who’d been out of their employ for thirty years, he had no idea. Maybe, he thought as inspiration struck him, his real father had worked there too. If he’d just died, that would explain why Findlater was dragging things out so much, and maybe even why he was here himself. If say, Carson popped his clogs and turned out to have a son none of them knew about, it was entirely possible Lord Grantham would feel like he had to break the news in person. 

“Yes. You see, I knew your mother, when she was there. Rather well, as it happens. I was…unaware of the existence of a child, until quite recently, although I understand my mother did provide some financial support, for your education and so on. You attended grammar school, I understand.”

“Yes, my lord,” he said, confused. “Until my adopted parents’ deaths.”

Findlater nodded. “Yes. Mama had said that she was unable to trace where you had gone, after that. And indeed, it was only through the War Office that I was able to locate you now. And because my mother decided finally to tell me the truth, that is. Circumstances in our family have changed, owing to the war, you see. Where once Mother had two sons and two grandsons, now she has only me. Likewise, I have no brother or nephews. She felt that now I ought to know that I might have a son still living.” 

For a long moment, Thomas had no idea why Findlater was telling him this. Finally, the penny dropped. “You’re saying that I’m….” 

“My natural son, yes. I’m sure this news must come as a shock to you—it did to me as well.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, momentarily forgetting his manners. “Not half a shock.” 

“I…you see, I had been up at Oxford at the time your mother’s situation became apparent. Mama elected to dismiss her and spare me the details. I regret deeply that I was prevented from doing anything to ease her circumstances, and yours.” He stared into the fire for a long moment. “Indeed, I wonder now if proper care, which our family’s resources could have supplied, might have spared her life.”

Now that he brought it up, Thomas wondered that too. “I don’t imagine there’s any way we can be certain, my lord.”

“I suppose not,” he said, shaking himself out of his reverie. “In any case, I’m particularly hopeful that you should not think too badly of us for not doing more. Mama—well, I’m afraid I _do_ think rather badly of Mama for concealing the truth for so long. At the time, I was given some story about how Sarah had been called away by her family, and I believed it. It wasn’t really a romance, I should say. We were pals, more than anything. So I didn’t think it terribly odd that she should leave without writing me. But Mama…feels strongly that she did the right thing. She thought that providing for your education, and perhaps seeing you set up in some suitable profession when the time came, was the extent of our responsibilities.”

“I understand.” Thomas knew perfectly well that, in the circumstances, it was generous of her to do anything at all. But maybe, since he hadn’t, as it turned out, been set up in a profession, there would be something coming to him now? 

“I would have liked to be able to take an interest, for you to have known who I was,” Findlater continued. “Although perhaps that would have only confused things, with your adopted parents. In any case, I should like very much to be allowed to know you now. Mama, as well, has quite come around to acknowledging you, now that the war has left her with no grandchildren at all. We hope, in fact, that you’ll come up to Huntingtower for at least a week. She’s in poor health, you see, and can’t travel.” 

“That’s very kind,” Thomas said cautiously. The invitation, at least, gave him a delicate way to get to the meat of the thing—namely, was Findlater planning to do anything for him in material terms? “I’m not certain that I could arrange to be away that long, without losing my place.” 

“Of course.” Findlater hesitated. “I shouldn’t like to insult you, and if you prefer to remain in your current situation, I shall accept that, but I expect we can come to some suitable arrangement. There’s no prospect of the title, you understand,” he added hastily.

“I understand.”

“But an allowance of some kind, a life interest in some suitable residence, certainly. Or the means of setting yourself up in independent business, if you prefer to work. For the acknowledged son of an earl, even a natural son, to be valet to a _different_ earl is—well, as I said, I don’t like to insult you. But I’m sure you understand how it might be awkward for all concerned.”

“I believe I do,” Thomas said. “That sounds very generous, my lord.” Indeed, it sounded like a dream, or a hallucination, if not an elaborate practical joke. He’d have bet on the latter except that Lord Grantham was involved. 

“I feel I’ve as much moral obligation as any father, even if the law says otherwise. Indeed, I had rather thought I’d arrange something similar for your mother—I was quite unable to trace her, but I thought you might be able to tell me where to find her.”

“I’m not even sure which churchyard it’d be,” he said. “I’m sorry, to have been the one to give you bad news, my lord.”

“Your loss is the greater one,” Findlater said. “It doesn’t alter the situation as far as you’re concerned.” He planted his cane, seemingly preparatory to standing up. “Is there anything you’d like to ask me?”

“Not right now, my lord,” Thomas said. The questions foremost on his mind were how much? in regards to the allowance, and what kind? in regards to the ‘suitable residence,’ but to ask those would seem entirely too mercenary. 

“I’ll be staying in the village for at least a few days, so that we can talk again. Once you’ve had a little time to think about it, we can sort out whether you’d like to return to Huntingtower when I go, or fix a time to come later.”

“Yes, my lord,” Thomas agreed.

Findlater stood. “I say—I don’t imagine you want to start calling me ‘Papa,’ at this late a date, but perhaps…Findlater? Or Tom? It’s something to think about.”

Indeed it was. Thomas opened the door for him to leave. He supposed that was something you’d do for your crippled father, soon-to-be-former-servant or not. Maybe. 

Going through the baize door and back downstairs, Thomas decided the next thing to do was to seek out O’Brien—she’d be certain to have some ideas on how to get the maximum benefit from this new association. 

“Gone to the dressmaker with her ladyship,” Anna said when he asked, having checked all the usual places without finding her. “Is there something you need?”

“No,” he said. “Advice, on a personal matter.”

Anna looked at him expectantly.

“I’m not going to ask you!” He stomped off.

Thomas wasn’t sure what to say to the others. Giving notice to Lord Grantham should probably come first—not that it really mattered, if he was leaving service for good, but he rather thought that ‘humble and grateful’ was the best way to play things with Findlater, and who knew whether or not it might get back to him if there was anything irregular about Thomas’s departure from Downton? So he kept his head down and occupied himself with his usual duties.

At tea, Carson told him that he’d be needed to wait at table, “as we have guests.”

“We have?” Thomas asked. He knew they were expecting Matthew and Mrs. Crawley, but they weren’t really considered guests anymore, since the engagement.

“The Lord of Findlater. Incidentally, do you know why his lordship would feel that it is inappropriate for you to valet the gentleman?”

“What, he’s staying here? I thought he was at the inn.”

“His lordship asked him to stay—not that it’s any concern of yours. Well?”

“If his lordship didn’t say, I’m sure I couldn’t,” Thomas answered. It was, surely, just as inappropriate for Thomas to wait on him at dinner. Likely Carson hadn’t mentioned that plan to his lordship. Thomas decided he might as well keep his own counsel about that. If the Earl of Findlater objected to the sight of his long-lost son in livery, it would give him a perfect opportunity to be humble. He might even be able to work in ‘grateful.’ 

#

O’Brien, returning from the dressmaker’s long after the servants’ tea, was forced to go to the kitchen in search of a cup and a bite to eat. 

“Maybe you’ll know,” Daisy said as she prepared it. “The gentleman who’s staying—why’s Mr. Carson call him the Lord of Findlater, when ours is called ‘Lord Grantham’? Miss O’Brien? Are you all right? You just went all pale.”

“I’m fine,” she snapped. It was nothing to worry about, she told herself. If it was even anyone she knew—and it might not be—it was probably the elder brother. He would have no reason to recognize her face, particularly after so many years had passed. “Tired from missing my tea. He’s called the Lord of Findlater because it’s a Scottish title, and that’s how they do it.” 

“I see,” Daisy said, though it was clear she didn’t. “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll bring it in when it’s ready?”

O’Brien went to the servants’ hall and sat. A few casual questions to Daisy produced the information that Findlater had come unexpectedly, and was staying for a day or two. She’d just have to get a glimpse of him, without him seeing her, that was all. That would tell her how careful she had to be. It should be easy enough for a lady’s maid to stay out of sight of a visiting gentleman for a few days, if necessary.

It was a different story for Thomas, but there was no reason for Findlater to recognize him. He’d never laid eyes on him, and if he noticed a resemblance…well, even if he did, it needn’t come back to _her_. She was using a different name, now, and what Thomas didn’t know, he couldn’t tell. 

She wondered if she ought to tell him something. Not the whole story, of course, but since his mother was supposed to be her cousin, she could say….

No, better not. God only knew what Thomas would do with that information—try to extort money out of Findlater, probably. Not necessarily a bad idea, but it would be safer for all concerned if he did it _after_ the gentleman had left. 

#

“Will these suit, my lord?” Carson displayed a pair of cufflinks in the palm of his hand.

“Yes, perfectly. I appreciate your rounding some up for me.” Findlater even more greatly appreciated Grantham’s delicacy in not asking Thomas to valet him, and had meant to be as little trouble as possible to the butler, but the discovery that his own man had forgotten to pack any cufflinks had required him to enlist Carson’s aid in providing a pair he could borrow. Holding out one arm for Carson to put them on, he said, “I don’t know what you must think of my household—I don’t imagine Grantham’s man would make a mistake like that?” It was an awkward question, but he hoped the butler might volunteer some information about his son. He had missed so much time with him—nearly thirty years. 

“I couldn’t say, my lord. His lordship’s _current_ valet has only been in the position a short time.”

“I see.” He really couldn’t ask anything else, he decided regretfully, without obviously prying. After Carson had settled the evening jacket on his shoulders, Findlater dismissed him and went down. 

On his way down to the drawing room, Findlater observed his surroundings. It was foolish, he supposed, to think that he might get any idea of what his son was like, from examining his employer’s home—it wasn’t as if Thomas would have chosen the wallpaper, after all—but short of interrogating the servants, it was all he _could_ do. 

At the base of the main staircase, Findlater paused to examine a painting, happened to glance toward a door to a servants’ passage, and saw—

“Sarah!”

The woman went absolutely pale, and began to shut the door. He placed his hand in the way. “I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He had to be mistaken—Thomas had said that his mother was deceased, and surely he would know. Wouldn’t he? He must be seeing her in this stranger’s face because he’d been thinking about her. 

The woman beckoned him closer. “If you ever cared for me, Tom, you mustn’t tell her ladyship—or his lordship, either. No matter how many years ago it was, I could still lose my place if they knew.” 

“It is you,” he said. “But—Thomas said you had died in childbirth.”

“That’s what he was told—what were you doing talking to Thomas?”

“He’s why I came here. I’d no idea you were here, as well. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“After dinner. In the—” Sarah went stiff, then stepped fully through the door. “My lady.”

“Lord Findlater,” said Lady Grantham. “I came to see if you’d become lost on the way to the drawing room.” She glanced sharply at Sarah. 

“Yes,” he said. “I was just asking Miss Byrnes a question about the painting, here.” It was a ridiculous lie, but he could hardly tell the truth after Sarah had asked him not to, and he couldn’t think of anything better on the spur of the moment. 

“Miss Byrnes?” Lady Grantham looked puzzled. 

“Er,” he said. 

Looking between the two of them, Lady Grantham appeared to correctly deduce that there was something they weren’t saying. “O’Brien, you will tell me precisely what is going on.”

“Lady Grantham, it’s entirely my fault,” Findlater said. “I…mistook her for someone I once knew.” That was a much better story, and almost true. “We had just cleared up the misunderstanding when you arrived.”

“I see,” Lady Grantham said. “Then perhaps you will tell me why it seemed that she was making an… _assignation_ with you.”

“Ah,” Findlater said. “Well. It’s….” He couldn’t think of an innocent explanation. 

Sarah looked over at him. “It’s all right. We did have a prior acquaintance, my lady.”

Freed of his gentlemanly obligation to be silent, Findlater added, “There’s a private matter we must discuss. I asked Miss…”

“O’Brien,” Sarah supplied.

“Miss O’Brien where we might discuss it, that’s all.”

“I see,” Lady Grantham said. “The small library, I think.”

They went there. Before either Findlater or Sarah could begin to explain, the butler appeared. “My lady, should I instruct the kitchen to delay dinner?”

“Please,” she said. “And pour some sherry, please. Three glasses, unless Lord Findlater would like something else?”

“Sherry is fine, thank you,” he said. 

Carson handed round the glasses, then took himself out. 

“Very well,” Lady Grantham said. “My husband only had time before the dressing gong to say that he’d explain later why you had come so unexpectedly, Lord Findlater. I think perhaps that explanation had best not be delayed any longer.”

Sarah spoke first. “The truth is, my lady, as a young girl, I got myself in trouble. I gave the child to my sister to raise, and went back into service using a different name. I was Sarah Byrnes, then.”

“And—despite the usual phrase—she did not get herself into trouble entirely on her own,” Findlater said. 

“I see,” Lady Grantham said. “And why have you come here now, exactly?” she asked him.

“To find my son. I was only recently told that a child had resulted, you see. I didn’t know that Miss…that Sarah was here.”

“And your son is…?”

“Thomas, my lady,” Sarah supplied.

Lady Grantham stared at her. “And you chose to conceal this connection from me, for nearly fifteen years?”

“Yes, my lady.” Sarah cast her eyes down. “Helping him find a place was the only way I could provide for him, after my sister and her husband died. I thought if we both worked for the same household, I could watch over him.”

“I see,” Lady Grantham said again. 

“He’s not to blame, my lady, for any of it,” Sarah continued. “He knows me as his mother’s cousin. He doesn’t even know he’s…that he was born out of wedlock. I hope he won’t be put out to starve over something he had no fault in.”

Findlater glanced over at Lady Grantham, who was looking very stern, then addressed Sarah. “I came here to—belatedly though it might be—honor my proper responsibilities. Neither of you need worry about being put out to starve, whatever Lord and Lady Grantham may decide.” 

“No one is being put out to starve,” Lady Grantham said, sounding a little exasperated. “As you know, O’Brien, it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to hold such an indiscretion against you.”

Sarah answered that cryptic remark with a, “Yes, my lady.”

She turned to Findlater. “And if my husband asked you to stay with full knowledge of the…situation, I suppose there’s nothing I can say about it. I’ll leave you two to…I’ll return to the drawing room, but Lord Findlater, please join us there soon so that we can all go in to dinner.”

“Yes, yes, quite right,” he babbled. “We’ll just—I want to say one or two things to Miss O’Brien, and perhaps we can discuss matters in more detail at some more convenient time.”

Lady Grantham nodded regally and swept out. 

Once she had gone, Findlater said, “I truly had no idea about the child until a few months ago. I assure you, I would have done the honorable thing.”

“That’s as may be. What do you plan to do now, is more to the point.”

Findlater reviewed the offer he had made to Thomas. “I’d thought a house near Hightower, so that we can know each other. For you, the situation is a bit more delicate. We wouldn’t want to give the impression of an irregular arrangement. But certainly you should visit—perhaps when Thomas does—and we’ll work out what’s suitable.” He hesitated. “Incidentally, you need have no fear that I am suggesting an irregular arrangement. Even leaving all other considerations aside, I’ve had a war wound of a rather personal nature, and such things are quite impossible, if you take my meaning.”

“I do,” she said, and stood. “I should speak with Thomas, I think.”

“Yes, do,” he agreed. “And perhaps all three of us can talk tomorrow afternoon? I had planned on staying in the area for a few days, but under the circumstances I think I should impose on Lord Grantham for as brief a time as possible.” 

Once they had fixed a time, Sarah left, and Findlater made his way to the drawing room. All conversation stopped dead when he entered the room, leaving little doubt as to what everyone had been talking about. 

Dinner was an excruciating affair. Lady Grantham and Mrs. Crawley had just begun to determinedly carry a conversation about the weather when Thomas appeared, following behind Carson with a boat of sauce, and everyone stopped to look back and forth between him and Findlater, some more subtly than others. 

Thomas affected not to notice, doing a better job of it than Findlater thought he could have done. Findlater was rather proud of him. Shortly after, Grantham beckoned to Carson and whispered something in his ear. For the rest of the meal, the butler was assisted by a housemaid.

#

“I didn’t do anything,” Thomas was insisting to Carson when O’Brien tracked him down in the kitchen. “Like I said before, if you want to know why his lordship doesn’t want me serving, you’d have to ask him.”

“He didn’t, Mr. Carson,” O’Brien said. “And I expect his lordship or her ladyship will explain the situation as they see fit, when they see fit. If you don’t need Thomas, I’ve something to discuss with him.”

Carson agreed that he didn’t, and they went outside for a smoke. As O’Brien explained, Thomas listened with growing incredulity. 

“You don’t mean you’re my _actual mum_ ,” he said. 

“Kathleen was your actual mum,” she said sharply. “She and George had been trying for years to have children when I—when you were born. We decided it was best, for everyone, for them to be the only parents you knew.” 

“Yes, but—” He glanced, apparently involuntarily, in the direction of her lap. 

“Yes, but,” she agreed. “I’m sure you think I ought to have told you the truth, when you came here if not sooner, but I couldn’t trust your discretion when you were sixteen. And I’ve always looked out for you, just the same, haven’t I?”

“Sure you have,” Thomas said. She couldn’t quite tell if he was being sarcastic or not. He took two long drags on his cigarette before continuing, “I don’t know which is the bigger shock, you or the Earl of Findlater. I meant to ask your advice, you know, as soon as he told me.”

“Take him for all he’s worth, is my advice,” O’Brien said. “He’s the end of his line, and got his todger shot off in the war, or something like that, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t have anything that’s not nailed down with an entail. How much that is, I can’t say, but you should be in clover as long as he lives, at least.”

“I’d got that far,” Thomas said. “I was thinking more of what kind of impression to make on him—I figure, the more he likes me, the more generous he’ll be. Humble and grateful, do you think, or ought I to be acting like I know I deserve it?”

She considered. “Grateful, definitely. And humble—but not _too_ humble. You’re not the future Earl of Findlater, but you’re not a servant, either. I’d say, you start off showing that you know you’re a poor relation, but if you play your cards right, you can work your way up almost to what you might expect as a legitimate younger son.” 

#

Findlater decided to absent himself from the house for as much of the next day as he decently could. His first stop was the post office, to send a telegram updating his mother on his progress. After that, he occupied himself by wandering around the village, trying to get a sense of the place where Thomas and Sarah had lived for so long. Unfortunately, there was very little to see and do, and it was only a little past noon when he reported to the inn for luncheon, prepared for a long wait.

After a slice of really quite decent game pie, two pints of bitter, and at least a dozen inquiries from the innkeeper as to whether he wished anything else, Thomas finally arrived, saying, “Miss O’Brien—er—Byrnes. Or Mum, I suppose—”

“I know who you mean,” Findlater said.

“Right. She’ll be about an hour, she says to tell you. Her ladyship usually changes after luncheon; his lordship doesn’t, so…well. I came ahead. I hope that’s all right.”

“Perfectly,” Findlater said. “Have you lunched?” he asked, seeing the innkeeper approaching again.

“What? Oh. Yes.”

Right, servants’ dinner was usually dreadfully early. “I’ll have another,” he told the innkeeper, touching his glass. “And?” he looked expectantly at Thomas.

“Pint of bitter, thanks,” Thomas said. 

They sat in uncomfortable silence until the innkeeper returned with the glasses. “The bitter’s quite good here,” Findlater ventured. 

“Yes, I know.” 

“I suppose you would,” Findlater admitted. “You’ve lived here—what, fifteen years?”

“Something like that. I was away for part of the war.”

One thing that could be said for the war was that it provided a bit of common ground for every British male between the ages of maturity and senility, and the subject proved to break the ice between them. They soon discovered that they had both been in the Somme, although in different sectors. Findlater had been lucky, in a way, to be wounded early on; Thomas had been there, he said, for nearly the whole campaign.

“Which regiment?”

“Royal Army Medical Corps,” Thomas said, setting his jaw as if expecting Findlater to disapprove. “Attached to the Duke of Manchester’s Own.”

“Believe me, I know that wasn’t the soft option,” Findlater said. “The stretcher-bearers attached to my regiment came out under heavy fire to bring me in, when I got my packet.”

Thomas nodded. “I had to do that more than a few times.”

“I don’t know that it doesn’t take more bravery to do something like that, going out on your own with no weapon, than it does to go over the top with the rest of the regiment.” 

“It wasn’t easy,” Thomas agreed. 

It also turned out that they had both spent the second half of the war in hospitals and convalescent homes, Thomas as an orderly, Findlater as a patient. 

“It wasn’t too bad, really,” Thomas said, working off the fingerless leather glove he wore on his left hand and displaying his wound. “I can’t really move these last two fingers, but I was lucky, to get Home Service for the rest of the war, for a little thing like that.”

“And you came out of it with a Sergeant’s stripe, didn’t you?” That was what the War Office had indicated.

“Acting Sergeant, really,” Thomas said. “They only made it official on my de-mob papers.” Thomas explained how Lady Grantham had asked him to manage the day-to-day operations when Downton was turned into a convalescent home, and his CO had pushed a field promotion through. 

“I’m sure they wouldn’t have recommended you for it if they didn’t think you deserved it,” Findlater said. It spoke well of Thomas’s character that he was inclined to downplay the accomplishment, but having been recommended for promotion by people who knew his work struck Findlater as nothing to be ashamed of—quite the reverse, in fact. Findlater himself had been made a Captain for no stronger reason than that his father was an earl and he’d been to Oxford. 

At Findlater’s urging, Thomas spoke a little more about his duties managing the convalescent home, and Findlater found himself even more impressed, and said so. “I wonder if—well, if you choose to stay at Huntingtower, your experience may be useful. With managing the estate and so on.”

“I’d be glad to help in any way I can.”

“Not that I expect you to sing for your supper,” he added. “But—well, I never expected to inherit, since I was the younger son. I’m learning as quickly as I can, while Mama and Baxter, who was estate manager under my father, are still able to help me. And I’m sure two of us could learn faster than one.” The more he thought about it, the more Findlater liked the idea. As it was, shouldering his duties as Lord of Findlater meant constant reminders of loss. Working side-by-side with his son would make it all seem a bit less bleak. There even was tradition to back it up, if one went back to the Middle Ages. It had been quite usual for noblemen in those days to appoint their illegitimate sons or brothers as stewards of the estate. “Not that we should decide anything right now,” he added quickly. “Once you’ve seen the place and met the people, we can decide what’s best.”

“What’s it like, the estate?” Thomas asked. 

“Well, the core of the house is a medieval hall. Two of them, in fact—it’s believed they were built for a pair of brothers, and the middle part filled in about a century later,” Findlater began. He went on to describe the house in some detail, then the surrounding farms. “It’s fairly isolated—not within shouting distance of the village, like here. In fact—shall I tell you a little about how I came to know your mother?”

“If you like.”

“I feel that I should—it sounds very sordid, I know, an earl’s son and a housemaid. But it wasn’t like that at all. The isolation of the place threw us together. We did little visiting, since the roads were so poor, and distances so long, and in any case, most of the neighbors—the ones who were the sort of people that one invites—sent their sons to school. It was always our tradition to have tutors. And my brother was a good deal older. I idolized him, but he was away at university by the time I knew your mother. I was lonely, though I didn’t know to call it that then, since I’d never known any other sort of life. I spent most of my time out tramping through the countryside—I was mad for natural history. I still take an interest, in fact. And as for your mother’s part of it, there was nowhere for the servants to go on their half-days out. In those days, it was a solid two hours’ walk to the nearest town. It’s better now, since the road’s been improved and we have the motor, but back then they’d spend their half-days in the servants’ hall, reading improving books. Sarah didn’t enjoy that very much.”

Thomas smiled. “No, I don’t think she would.”

“So she went for walks instead, and one afternoon we ran into each other—I was about fifteen, so she would have been thirteen. Girls went into service very young in those days. I showed her a handful of frog spawn or something, and she didn’t run off shrieking the way most girls would have. And she wasn’t shy of me, the way the other servants were. My mother thought she was too saucy for her own good, but I liked her. So after that, we’d usually meet up, some distance from the house, on her half-days, and I’d show her the most interesting sights I’d discovered recently, and we’d talk about…all manner of things. We called ourselves the ‘Huntingtower Natural History Society.’ We kept our friendship a secret because we both knew my mother wouldn’t approve, but it was entirely innocent.” He hesitated. “Then I went up to Oxford.”

So far, everything Findlater had said was the complete truth. He couldn’t tell his son how, when he’d been thrown into the company of others his age, he’d found himself…curiously indifferent to the fairer sex, but drawn to the other young men. Nor how he had decided that, perhaps, it was the _unfamiliarity_ of women in general that had distorted the development of normal longings. Instead, he said, “It was when I came home for the summer hols. that we…that things changed.” They had decided, after a frank and scientific discussion of the subject, to experiment. The conclusion—never immortalized in the Papers of the Society—had been that neither of them could quite understand what all the fuss was about. “We didn’t discuss—consequences. I didn’t think about them—most of my natural history studies involved single-celled organisms, or oviparous ones, so I was, by the standards of today’s young people, shockingly ignorant about how one starts a family. I wish we had. Discussed it, I mean. I would have married her, really. We weren’t in love, but we liked each other, and that’s enough to be getting on with.”

Thomas stirred. “Probably, that’s exactly why your mother never told you.”

“You may be right. Mama certainly would have kicked up a fuss at the idea.” He hesitated. “Will you tell me about—how you grew up? The people who raised you?”

“I suppose.” Thomas thought for a moment, then began. “Dad—Uncle George, but I called them Mum and Dad—worked in a clockmaker’s shop. Repairs, mostly. He was—well, I know now he was a bit feckless, really. When he got his pay packet, he’d come home with presents for everyone—hats and things for Mum, bags and bags of sweets. I had more toys than anyone I knew. Then by the end of the month Mum’d be scraping the bottom of the pot and begging the shopkeepers for credit. I’m sure it drove her right ‘round the twist, but at the time I just thought Dad was great fun, and Mum was a bit of a bore, always fussing over money and so on.” He shrugged. “They were good parents. Maybe not ideal, but I knew they loved me.”

That was a relief. The bare facts that Findlater had been able to learn had not been particularly reassuring—a natural child raised by maternal relatives could easily have had a very unhappy upbringing, treated by his guardians as a reminder of his mother’s fall from grace. Findlater carefully pushed aside any hint of resentment at hearing his son calling another man “Dad”—it was for the best, since he hadn’t been involved, that Thomas had known a father. 

“What else do you want to know?” Thomas asked.

Findlater wasn’t sure, really. He wanted to know everything. “Did you enjoy school?” He’d asked his two nephews that question dozens of times, since James had decided to break with tradition and send them. 

Thomas winced. “Not really. It seemed like all you ever did was memorize Latin verbs, do sums, and get caned. I’d have rather been helping Dad out in the shop, like most of the lads my age on our street were doing. But Mum was always after me about how I had to do well so I could go to university and be a professional man—‘a solicitor or something,’ she always said. I’d say maybe I didn’t want to be a solicitor, and she’d say, with a good education I could be anything. I’d ask, like what, and she’d say, ‘a solicitor or something.’” He shook his head. “This is sure to sound awful, but when they died—I missed them, of course, and I was very sad, but I remember when Uncle Henry—Dad’s brother, that is; he wasn’t my real uncle—sat me down and told me Dad had left nothing but debts and I’d have to find a job as soon as I could manage it, I thought the silver lining in the whole thing was that I could leave school and didn’t have to be ‘a solicitor or something.’” 

“That sounds…so like Sarah,” Findlater said. “It reminds me, somehow, of something she said when she would have been about the same age. She told me she never wanted to marry, because as far as she could see, her mum did all the same work as a maid, and didn’t even get wages or half-days out. I don’t know; it’s not really the same, but it reminds me.”

Thomas smiled. “That does sound like her.”

“She said that she got you your job at Downton?”

“Yes. She had visited us a few times, so I knew her. I called her Aunt Sarah; Mum said she was her cousin. Somebody wrote to her and told her what had happened and that I needed a place—I’m not sure who. Mum might even have had time to do it, before the end. She lingered a bit. I had been staying with Uncle Henry and his family, but they didn’t want me stopping on too long since I wasn’t really related. So she fixed it up, and sent me train tickets and a letter saying once I was in the house I was to call her Miss O’Brien, and keep the family connection quiet.”

“I imagine it would have been difficult, going into service when you’d been brought up to expect a different kind of life.” He couldn’t really imagine it, himself. Losing his own father at the age of forty-nine had been bad enough. 

“I found it a big adventure, really. Being out on my own and getting wages, going down to London to be measured for livery, and all that. It might have been different if I’d gone right after losing Mum and Dad, but I’d been at Uncle Henry’s place for a couple of months by then, being treated like a lodger who was behind on rent, so I was pretty keen to make a new start of things. And Miss O’Brien helped me find my feet.”

Findlater was, once again, impressed, this time by Thomas’s lack of self-pity over what must have been very trying circumstances. But at the same time, he couldn’t help wishing that he had been able to help Thomas then, when he’d needed him. “Did you ever wonder about…well, me? About what your real father was like?”

Thomas ducked his head. “I should say that I did, shouldn’t I? Honestly, I didn’t think that much about it. I always knew that Mum and Dad were really my aunt and uncle—I don’t remember them ever telling me; it was just a fact, and I didn’t worry about it. Mum used to tell me stories about growing up in a big family—being an only child, I liked hearing about all that—and eventually I put together that her sister Sarah in the stories was the same person as my mother who died. But—well, there were a few of my mates who didn’t have a dad in the house, and I remember thinking it must just happen that way sometimes. By the time I was old enough to have it all sorted out, I had already lost three parents, so I didn’t see much point in speculating about the fourth.”

“Understandable,” Findlater said. And much easier to hear, he supposed, than that his son had spent his entire childhood wondering who he was and why he didn’t come. 

#

Seeing Tom and Thomas sitting face to face, their heads bent close together in conversation, O’Brien was struck by how alike they were. Tom’s hair was fair, and Thomas’s dark, but their features were very much the same. No one could possibly doubt, she thought, that Thomas was exactly who he was said to be. Tom’s son. 

She went over to them and made her excuses about having been delayed with some mending necessary to the dress her ladyship wanted to wear that night. In truth, she knew that, had she explained the appointment, her ladyship would have chosen a different dress. But she had found herself cravenly glad of the excuse to put off this meeting. She didn’t know how to talk to them, together. 

“Not to worry,” Tom said. “Would you like a sherry? Something else? Sherry, please,” he said to the barman. “And another round for us.” To her, he continued, “We’ve been getting to know each other, Thomas and I.”

“And what do you think of our handiwork?”

“I’m not sure that I can take much credit for it, but we seem to have managed to produce a fine son.”

Good, Thomas had managed not to put his foot in it too badly, then. “I’m sure it’s more Kathleen’s doing than either of ours,” she said. 

Thomas actually managed to blush a little around the ears at that. Good lad.

They’d spent a few minutes reviewing what each of them had been doing for the last almost-thirty years. Tom, as it turned out, was still mucking about with frogspawn and similar. He’d managed to make a few expeditions to look at frogspawn in foreign parts, which had been his cherished ambition when they were young. More recently, he’d occupied himself in his laboratory on the estate—much larger than the one he’d had as a boy, he said proudly, describing its equipment in some detail—conducting experiments and writing about them. When he felt the need for some society, apparently, he visited the natural history department of the nearest museum and made a nuisance of himself to the men who worked there. At least, that was what it sounded to her like he did—Tom put it a little differently. 

After that, O’Brien managed to maneuver the conversation around to the future. 

“I think Thomas is about ready to say he’ll come up to Huntingtower, if I’m not mistaken,” Findlater said, looking over at Thomas. 

Thomas nodded. “I’ll have to give notice. I’m not sure if his lordship will insist on the full two weeks, in the circumstances, but I don’t like to leave him in the lurch. I’ll speak to him tonight, when I dress him for dinner, and let you know tomorrow when you can expect me.”

“Very good. And, Sarah, we should be glad to have you, as well. If you like. I don’t quite know whether you can stand the sight of either of us—Mama or myself, I mean.”

“I don’t hold it against you,” she said. That much was true enough—that Tom had never known about her pregnancy was entirely believable. “Or the Dowager Countess.” That, on the other hand, was at best a half-truth. O’Brien completely understood _why_ she hadn’t told Tom, and why she had sacked young Sarah Byrnes the moment the pregnancy became known. In her place, O’Brien knew, she’d like as not have made the same decision. But she also knew that she was not, herself, a very kind person. “I’ll have to consider things. My position here is secure, and it suits me well—I wouldn’t find another as good if I left and regretted it.” Humility and gratitude suited Thomas’s position as the foundling recently awakened to his expectations; since Tom saw her as the Wronged Party, she could take a harder, more cautious line, and try to get something nailed down in writing. With any luck, both strategies would succeed, but if not, at least one of them would end up with something, and they could share it. 

“I understand. Of course, you would want some assurance of security, before making a decision,” Findlater said. “Especially after the shabby way our family has treated you before. Perhaps it would be best if I had our solicitor draw something up.”

She didn’t like the sound of that; a solicitor might talk him into being less generous than he’d planned. “Before I make any permanent decisions, I’d like to know what I can expect,” she said. “But as for a visit…I thought I might begin by asking her ladyship if she can spare me for a week or so.”

“We would be most gratified,” Tom said. “I’m sure Mama would like to make her apologies in person.”

After a few more reminiscences about old times—which Thomas listened to with an appropriately eager and wistful expression—they took their leave to return to their duties. 

Once they were well on the way back, and quite sure Tom wasn’t anywhere nearby, O’Brien asked, “What did he offer you?”

“He wants me to help him manage the estate,” Thomas said. 

“A job? That’s all?”

“Not like that. Like—like I was his son.”

It sounded like Thomas was starting to fall for his own ‘humble and grateful’ act. “I suppose it could be a good opportunity.”

“I thought so. He really wanted me to know what great pals you were, and how there wasn’t anything _sordid_ about his getting you in the club,” Thomas added. “Is that true?”

“What did he say?”

Thomas summarized. 

“That sounds about right, except he didn’t mention the part where he only asked because he was hoping to find out he wasn’t _really_ of the lavender persuasion.”

“I figured it was something like that,” Thomas said. “Wasn’t sure if you noticed. It’s almost too bad we’ve told him he’s my dad, the way I’ve got him eating out of my hand, I could wind up acting Countess, otherwise.”

It took O’Brien a moment to understand what he meant, and another to decide that yes, he definitely had meant that. “Thomas James Barrow, that is disgusting. I ought to wash your mouth out with soap.”

“He’s not that ancient,” Thomas said. “And he’s rather nice-looking.”

“You would think that; you look just like him. And that’s not why it’s disgusting. He’s your _father_.”

“He really is?”

“Of course he really is!”

“All right, I just thought we might be…taking the benefit of the doubt.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to imply about your own mum,” she said. 

“You can’t really blame me if I’m a bit of a bastard,” Thomas said with a shrug. 

She swatted the back of his head. 

#

As Grantham had hoped he would, Thomas gave notice when he came up to dress him for dinner. “Yes, of course,” Grantham told him. “The situation being what it is, I don’t think it’s necessary for you to work out your notice.” The opportunity to have a valet of his own choosing, alone, was worth the inconvenience of doing without until a new man could be hired. Beyond that, now that the entire household, upstairs and down, was aware of Thomas’s relationship to Findlater, having him stay would only be awkward for everyone. 

He did, privately, think rather better of Thomas than he ever had before, for how he was attempting to carry on as normal. 

Thomas started putting in his cufflinks. “Thank you. The Dowager Countess—Grandmamma, I mean—isn’t in the best of health, and Father is anxious that I should arrive while she’s still well enough to know me.”

The shy, hesitant way he said, “Grandmamma” and “Father” was rather touching. Grantham couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be presented with an entire new family as a grown man, let alone one of such a different station in life. “Of course. Let me know when you’ve fixed a date of departure.” He hesitated. “I hope you know, whatever difficulties we may have had in the past, I wish you all the best in your new circumstances.”

“That’s very kind of you to say, my lord.”

The next day, however, Findlater sought Grantham out in the library to tell him that he’d asked Carson to arrange to have his things moved down to the inn. “I’ve found that my business here will take a little longer than originally thought, and I don’t like to impose on your kindness.”

“You should do as you think best, of course,” Grantham said, a little confused. Thomas had certainly given the impression that everything was settled. “But you are welcome to remain a guest at Downton for as long as you may need. I wouldn’t want you to feel embarrassed or unwelcome when you are, after all, doing the right thing.” Indeed, Grantham hoped that if he were in Findlater’s situation, he’d be able to handle it with as much grace. He liked to imagine that he would, but it had to be a much easier thing in theory than in actual practice. If he were presented with similar news, he thought it likely that he’d manage to convince himself that all he need decently do was send a polite letter and arrange an allowance. “If there is any way that we can be of assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“In fact, I did wonder if you could tell me a little more about my son’s character,” Findlater said. 

Oh. It was entirely possible, Grantham thought, that Findlater had heard something in the house that had instilled in him a belated, but appropriate, sense of caution about the wisdom of taking Thomas Barrow into the family bosom. He chose his remarks carefully, telling himself that it was not his eagerness to see Thomas settled elsewhere that inspired his delicacy, but rather a natural and gentlemanly reluctance to speak ill of a son to his father. “His war record is quite good,” he began. “He volunteered as soon as the war began, which speaks well of his character, and served on the front lines in a very difficult sector, until he was wounded. I understand that both Doctor Clarkson and Lady Grantham were quite satisfied with how he ran the convalescent home here—you might speak to them; I was not closely involved with that side of things.”

Findlater asked where he could find the former Major Clarkson; Grantham told him, and continued, “He’s only been my valet for a short time, but I’ve found him to be capable and conscientious. The responsibilities of the war had a steadying influence on him, I believe.” He hesitated. “He was not popular, below-stairs, before the war. Mr. Carson would know more about that, since he has charge of the footmen. You’re welcome to speak with him, as well.” Deflecting the issue onto Carson was not cowardice, Grantham told himself. Carson felt more strongly than Grantham himself did about the stealing, and was far more certain that it had actually occurred. He could choose whether to speak of it or not. “I’m not sure what else I can say.”

“I suppose,” Findlater said, “I’d like to know if you’d be pleased to have him as your son. But that’s an impertinent question, and you needn’t answer it.”

That question put rather a different complexion on things. Grantham could not whole-heartedly recommend Thomas as a servant. But that wasn’t what Findlater was asking. And he had, certainly, forgiven his own children for greater disappointments than any Thomas had inflicted on him. “One’s children make mistakes, of course. Make choices that one would rather they had not made—you’ve heard about my youngest daughter’s marriage, for example.” _That_ was generally known in Society, while Mary’s conduct was only rumor. 

“Yes,” Findlater agreed. “That example has particular relevance for the current situation, as a matter of fact. Not,” he added hastily, “that I mean to imply anything about your daughter’s behavior previous to the marriage. Simply that I understand you are soon to have grandchildren whose background and way of living will be very different to our own.”

“Yes, I understand,” Grantham said. “What I mean to say, is that I have learned that, for myself at least, there can be no question that whatever they may do, they are my children, and I will always accept them and do my best to be proud of the lives they make for themselves, even if they are not the lives that I would have chosen for them.”

Grantham thought that what he had said had almost no relevance to the question Findlater had asked, but Findlater said, “Thank you, Grantham. That’s…very helpful.” 

#

Earlier that morning, Findlater had received two telegrams in rapid succession, from the Dowager Countess. The first had said, “Remain Downton. Investigate boy’s character. Urgent woman must remain in parish. Letter follows.” 

Once he’d untangled what was meant by “urgent woman,” the insistence on Sarah remaining in the parish gave Findlater a slight hint of what his mother had in mind, but he thought he must be mistaken, and wrote a quick reply asking for clarification. 

Her answer had read, “If boy’s character suitable, can follow seventh Earl’s example. McAllister consulted. Letter follows.” In short, it confirmed what Findlater suspected. The seventh Earl had taken a drastic step to prevent the extinction of the title a century ago, and his mother had McAllister, the family solicitor, checking whether the law still permitted the same step. 

After talking with Grantham, Findlater wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to continue investigating Thomas’s character. As Grantham had reminded him, one ordinarily did not have the opportunity to decide if one’s children deserved their patrimony. But his mother would feel differently, certainly. She’d think it better for Huntingtower to revert to the Crown than to fall into the hands of a dissolute.

So he continued, and spoke to Lady Grantham next. She had more to say about Thomas himself than Grantham had, praising his delicacy in handling the difficult situation of transforming Downton into a convalescent home, and his willingness to pitch in and help when the household was stricken with Spanish ‘flu. 

“What about before the war?” Since Grantham had hinted that the war had improved Thomas, Findlater was anxious to know what faults they had found with him before that. 

“Well, he was a footman, and of course one doesn’t really get to _know_ footmen….” She explained that he’d been kept on after his trial period, and had been promoted to first footman two years before the war, so he must have done well. “I do remember that Mrs. Hughes, the housekeeper, was a little concerned that he made too much of his authority over the new footman, William. But it was the first time he’d been responsible for managing anyone, so I don’t think we can be too hard on him for that.” 

After that interview, Findlater went down to the village. After checking that his things had reached the inn safely, and informing the post office than any further letters or telegrams would find him there, he went round to the hospital. 

He realized quickly that the news of his reason for coming to Downton had not reached Dr. Clarkson, and the man naturally assumed that Findlater was considering Thomas for a job. Findlater decided to let the misunderstanding continue, for a time, since Clarkson might be more frank under those circumstances than otherwise. 

“It must be a very responsible position you’re considering him for, if you’re taking his references in person,” Clarkson commented.

“Yes,” Findlater said. “A bit more responsibility than he’s used to, I should think.”

Clarkson’s evaluation, like those from the household at Downton, was cautiously positive. He’d found Thomas to be capable and conscientious, if a bit strong-willed. “There was a time or two when he openly disagreed with me about matters of policy. It’s to his credit that he felt strongly about patient welfare, of course. And I did…well, there was one matter where I came to believe that he was right, even if he had been impertinent in saying so.”

That sounded perfectly all right to Findlater. In fact, the impression he’d formed of Thomas so far was that he was, if anything, a little _too_ passive for the role Mama had in mind for him. But anyone would be a little shy of a father who had suddenly come out of the woodwork after thirty years’ absence. That he showed a bit more spunk when he felt confident was welcome news. 

Toward the end of the interview, Clarkson repeated the hints that Findlater had had from Grantham and Lady Grantham, that Thomas had had some difficulties in fitting in with the Downton staff. He didn’t know much about it, he said, and hadn’t observed the problems for himself. “I’d speak to the butler, Mr. Carson, if I were you,” he said. “But—if you don’t mind my saying—I’d take what he says with a grain or two of salt. I’ve found him to be a little hard on Barrow, myself.”

That was the second time Findlater had been urged to speak to Carson. After leaving the hospital, he sent a message up to the house, asking the butler to call on him at his convenience the next day.

#

Mr. Carson delivered himself to the village in promptly at the appointed time, still a little unsure of precisely what he ought to say. In providing references—a duty which his lordship and her ladyship had on occasion entrusted to him—the usual procedure was to speak only of the employee’s merits, and remain silent on all other matters. In Thomas’s case, such a course of action would make for a very short interview. 

Lord Findlater received him in the inn’s parlour, inviting him to sit with a fine, gentlemanly manner. “Thank you for taking the time to talk with me—I know you must be frightfully busy.” After Carson’s polite demurral, he said, “Shall we get down to brass tacks? What can you tell me about my son?”

“I’ve found him to be a conscientious worker, when he chooses to be.” And with that sentence, he disposed fully of Thomas’s merits as a servant. 

Findlater nodded encouragingly. 

In the grip of contradictory impulses, Carson was paralyzed. Lord Findlater had called upon Carson’s professional judgment, and Lord Grantham himself had, when consulted, urged frankness. But to tell a gentleman that his son was a liar, a thief, and a sneak went against all of his training and his innate sense of decorum. That Findlater was here, prepared to take responsibility for his mistake, showed that he was a gentleman of good character—unlike others of recent memory. It was only that Thomas was so patently undeserving of such good fortune. Under other circumstances, to deliver his well-deserved comeuppance would have been a pleasure, but not when Carson knew that it could not but cause pain to such a gentleman. “I’m not certain that I should say anything more, my lord.” 

“You’ve known him for nearly fifteen years,” Findlater pointed out. “Surely you know more than that.”

“Little that I should care to say to a father, my lord.” 

“I appreciate your delicacy,” Findlater said. “But it is important that I know. Suppose I were speaking to you about hiring him as a valet. What would you tell me then?”

“In that case,” Carson said, “I should say that it was only with the greatest reluctance—and at Lord Grantham’s direct insistence—that I permitted him to return to Downton as a footman after the war.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he is a thief, my lord.” Now that the subject was broached, Carson explained about the wine and the wallet, omitting only the affair of the snuffbox, because it had never been completely clear what had happened in that situation. “Not only that, but he persuaded another servant—a young girl who had tender feelings for him—to bear to me a false tale implicating another member of the staff in the theft.”

“Oh,” Findlater said. “Well, that’s not exactly cricket, is it.”

“As you say, my lord.” 

“Is there more?”

“I don’t like to be petty, my lord.” But, at Findlater’s urging, he explained Thomas’s cruelty towards poor William, as well as Daisy, Bates, and others. “Taken all together, I must say, with regret, that I do not consider him of particularly sound character, my lord.”

“I suppose not,” Findlater said. “What about after the war? Grantham suggested that he thought the war had improved him.”

Carson considered that assessment. “Yes,” he decided. “I suppose it has. The manner in which he conducted himself upon being placed in charge of the convalescent home was most unbecoming—but I feared worse. The streak of petty cruelty in him has, shall we say, narrowed. And I don’t believe he’s precisely _stolen_ anything since the war.” Findlater, naturally, asked what he meant by that, requiring Carson to explain about Thomas’s black market dealings. 

“How was it that he _did_ get his job back?” Findlater asked.

“Largely because, after his demobilization from the Army, he simply declined to leave. His lordship and her ladyship were understandably reluctant to forcibly evict him, after his war service, and he was entirely unresponsive to suggestion.” Fairness compelled Carson to add, “Now, of course, I understand that he had nowhere else to turn.” It was still completely inappropriate for Thomas to impose upon Downton in that way, and he had no one to blame but himself that he didn’t have his Army wages to live on, but his eagerness to ingratiate himself back into the household seemed more pitiable than anything else now that Carson considered the fact that he’d have been, quite literally, out on the street if Carson had succeeded in requiring him to move on. 

“That’s as much my fault, and the Dowager Lady Findlater’s, as anyone’s I’m afraid,” Findlater said.

“I wasn’t saying that, my lord,” Carson hastened to say. 

“You don’t have to say it; it’s true. At the very least, he ought to have known who to ask when he needed help, instead of having to impose on the charity of a former employer.” He shook his head. “In fact, I find it difficult to blame him too harshly for any of it. Whose duty was it, if not his father’s, to teach him right from wrong? And when I ought to have been doing it, I didn’t know he existed.”

“If you say so, my lord.” Privately, Carson thought that, as a man of nearly thirty, Thomas ought to have managed to figure out that stealing and lying were wrong whether he’d had a father or not, but he didn’t want to contradict the Lord of Findlater. “He did make himself very useful when the Spanish ‘flu struck. I’m quite certain that he did so in hopes of being taken back on in his former position, but it was good of him.” 

“Clever, as well, since it seems to have worked,” Findlater noted. 

“Yes, he is clever,” Carson admitted. With some effort, he could remember being impressed with how quickly Thomas had learned his duties when he first came to Downton. Carson had been hesitant to take him on, knowing that he’d never worked before, but he had proven himself nicely. At the beginning, Carson had been optimistic that he’d make something of himself. 

Findlater concluded the interview by thanking him for his frankness. “It’s not entirely what I had hoped to hear, but I appreciate your telling me.”

“I’m glad to be of service, my lord.” Carson hoped that he hadn’t just destroyed this chance at getting shot of Thomas, once and for all. With any luck, Lord Findlater would set Thomas up in some obscure corner with an income sufficient to live on, but not to allow him to debauch himself. A life in which all that was expected of him was that he live within an income and do nothing to embarrass his family was, perhaps, that for which Thomas was most perfectly suited. 

#

The morning post had brought Findlater a letter from Mama, laying out in stark terms much of what he had already surmised. She seemed to quite take for granted that Sarah would have no objection to the plan, although she did allow for the possibility that _he_ might. “If there is any serious prospect of your making a more appropriate match,” she wrote, “then we should not proceed, but if not, I should hope that you recognize your duty to continue the line.” 

That afternoon, after the interview with Carson, he began his reply by saying that he was willing to carry through with her suggestion, and that he had reason to hope Miss Byrnes would consent. Then he hesitated over what to say about his investigation into Thomas’s character. 

The particular misdeeds the butler described were not particularly serious, but the undercurrent of deviousness was worrying. It appeared that Thomas had shown a very different face below-stairs to the one he showed above. 

Then again, Carson’s dislike of Thomas was palpable. Findlater didn’t seriously think that Carson was lying—the butler gave the distinct impression of being a pillar of rectitude—but a butler’s influence below-stairs was considerable, and his dislike would have made for an uncomfortable life for Thomas. Unhappiness didn’t excuse his poor behavior, but it did mitigate it somewhat. 

It was unfair of Findlater to think of how, in many households, an orphaned boy in his first position would have been taken under the butler’s wing and given the guidance he so sorely needed. It wasn’t Carson’s job to be Thomas’s substitute father, and if he was anything like most sixteen-year-old young men, Thomas had probably thought he didn’t need any such thing anyway. As it was, the only influences he’d had had been the adopted father he described as loving but feckless, and Sarah, who had, understandably, been made bitter by her circumstances. As a man of science, Findlater knew that the idea of an inherited noble character, which could shine through any kind of upbringing, was a fallacy. Character was as much learned as it was inborn, and—as he’d told Carson—he hadn’t raised Thomas to be the kind of man he wanted him to be, and he couldn’t blame Thomas for that. 

On the other side of the ledger, everyone seemed to agree that he was conscientious and quick to learn. Dr. Clarkson’s evidence, balanced out against Carson’s, suggested that he could be kind and capable of good leadership on occasion, qualities that could be nurtured. A man who was a bit less than one might hope for at, say, twenty-five, could still mature into something better, and it sounded like Thomas had already started doing so. 

Weighing most heavily on Findlater’s mind, though, was the simple fact that Thomas was his son, and while it might be possible to accept him without doing what Mama suggested, it would always stand between them. Even if Thomas never found out, how could he be a father to his son, knowing that he’d judged Thomas and found him unworthy? 

He couldn’t, was the answer to that. There was no question that Thomas was worthy of being his son—he would have been no matter what. If he’d found him on the streets of London picking pockets for a living, or in a cell in Newgate, he would still be Findlater’s son. The only one he had or would have. The Earldom was a complication, an accident. Had it stood between James and Jimmy, looming the way Findlater imagined it looming now? 

He wished he could ask. But he couldn’t, and he could only manage the situation the same way that men in his position always had—the way that Grantham had counseled, in fact. By accepting the son that fate had handed him, faults and merits together. 

In the end, he wrote that he had found Thomas’s character suitable, giving a few details from the interviews with Grantham, Lady Grantham, and Dr. Clarkson. He concluded by writing, “Before I say anything to either of them, I would like to be sure that McAllister is confident of the thing working out. I wouldn’t like to disrupt their lives unnecessarily.” 

The next morning’s post brought another letter, which had surely crossed his in the mail, outlining the steps McAllister had taken to make certain the plan was water-tight. The law had not changed since the seventh earl’s time, was the central detail. There was no precedent for doing the thing with such a substantial delay, but there was nothing in the law to say they couldn’t. More importantly, there were absolutely no other known claimants to challenge them in court. If anyone did come out of the woodwork, the connection would have to be so tenuous as to make any claim absurd. 

A short while later, another telegram arrived from Mama, saying only, “Received yours of yesterday. Proceed.”

#

O’Brien’s heart was in her throat when she went to the inn for a second meeting with Tom. They’d had no word from him for two days, although Thomas reported that Carson had dropped several nasty hints about how his interview with the earl had gone. They had spent as much time as they could working up plans for how they could answer every possible contingency. O’Brien was fairly confident that Tom would give them the opportunity to counter any accusations, but she knew that this meeting could be critical. 

“Miss Byrnes. Thank you for coming,” Tom said, standing up. They were meeting in the inn’s sitting room this time; a tea service sat on the table. 

The formality was a bad sign, she thought. 

“I expect you’ve heard I’ve been making inquiries about Thomas’s character. I hope you don’t think it impertinent. Mama insisted, and…well, in a moment, you’ll understand why.”

She answered that she understood, “And I hope you haven’t heard anything to make you uneasy.”

“Of course.” He hesitated. “May I pour you some tea? Sugar?” He fixed her a cup, then one for himself. “Bachelorhood, you may know, has long been the traditional lot of younger sons in my family. This habit means that we have few cadet branches to draw upon, and has brought the line to the point of extinction more than once, and at times, drastic measures have been necessary to ensure its continuance.”

She sipped her tea and made a murmur of inquiry.

“As you may remember, I was one of two brothers. My elder brother married and had the usual heir-and-spare, which in ordinary times ought to have been sufficient. But these are not ordinary times. We lost, in a few short years, my brother, both of his sons, and—if I may speak plainly—my ability to engender a future heir. We identified a second cousin as the next heir after me, only to find that he, too, had been killed in France. The family solicitor has, after substantial effort, failed to locate any other heir. As it stands, upon my death the title will become extinct and the entailed lands revert to the Crown.”

“That’s most unfortunate,” she said. “If only there was something I could do to help…” She wondered if Tom was on point of suggesting they forge a marriage certificate. 

“As a matter of fact, there is,” he said. “You see, one peculiarity of Scottish inheritance law is that offspring born illegitimate, but legitimated through subsequent marriage, are brought into the line of succession.”

She stared at him. 

“I realize it sounds irregular,” he said. “It is irregular. Very much so. But our solicitor has explored the matter fully. Provided there would have been no legal impediment to marriage at the time of the birth—that is, as long as both of us were unmarried at the time, and remain unmarried now—there is no reason that Thomas cannot be my heir.” He hesitated. “It requires only that we marry.”

“You want me to _marry_ you?”

“It would be a marriage in name only, I assure you, for the reasons I have previously alluded to. And you need not take on the role of lady of the house it you do not wish to. You’ll have your choice of where to make your home: in Huntingtower itself, or in the Dower house—Mama doesn’t use it—or in Perth, or Edinburgh or even London if you prefer.”

“The Dowager Countess would never approve,” she said faintly. She supposed that, in absolute terms, it didn’t matter if she approved or not, but Sarah couldn’t imagine Tom going through with something like that over what were bound to be his mother’s strong objections. 

“It was her idea,” Tom informed her. “It’s been done before. The eighth Earl of Findlater was the seventh Earl’s natural son—in that case, the boy was only eight at the time of the marriage, but the length of the delay is not a legal obstacle.”

“I see,” she said, her mind reeling. 

“I should do this properly, shouldn’t I?” he said, sitting down his cup and reaching over to take both of her hands in his. “Sarah Byrnes, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

#

Thomas was pacing the courtyard, smoking one cigarette after another, waiting for O’Brien to come back with news. When she finally did, he rushed over and said, “What did he say?”

“Fine way to greet your old mum,” she said. “Do you have one of those for me?”

He quickly offered her a cigarette and lit it for her. 

She took a long pull, and blew the smoke out slowly. “Well,” she said. “How would you fancy being an earl?”

“What?”

“As it turns out, in Scotland they aren’t too picky about whether the heir’s parents were married at the time of the birth, as long as they are eventually, and it wasn’t a case of adultery,” she explained. “And it wasn’t. If I marry Tom, you’re the twelfth Earl of Findlater.”

“You’re joking.” 

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” she said.

“How did you find that out? And how do you plan to talk him into it?”

“He told me,” she said. “Then he proposed.”

Thomas stared at her, goggle-eyed. “Well? What did you _say_?”

“I said yes, you berk.” She drew on her cigarette again. “He’ll be seeing the vicar tomorrow, about posting the banns. The solicitor thinks it best to do it that way, instead of seeking a special license, and to do it in the ‘bride’s home parish.’ Make the thing look as regular as possible, in the circumstances.”

“It’s going to look pretty damned irregular,” Thomas pointed out. “Blimey. I can’t wait to see the look on Carson’s face.”

“I think his lordship and her ladyship ought to be the first to know,” she pointed out. “And if I’m not mistaken, the dressing gong just went.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Let’s go and tell them.”

They raced for the house.

#

“I think we should have the wedding breakfast here, don’t you?” Cora said, coming into Grantham’s study.

“I thought we had already arranged that,” Grantham said. He was accustomed to hearing statements like that, without conversational preamble. Since the announcement of Mary and Matthew’s engagement, Cora had treated the subject of the wedding as one ongoing discussion that could resume unexpectedly at any time, without warning.

“I mean _O’Brien’s_ ,” she said. “After all, Downton has been her home for nearly fifteen years, and all of her friends are here.”

“Surely they’re having it in Scotland,” Grantham said. 

“The bride’s home parish is traditional,” Cora answered. 

“It’s also traditional to have the wedding sometime before the heir’s _thirtieth birthday_ ,” he pointed out. 

Cora brushed that aside. “It’ll be very small, nothing like what we’re planning for Mary, but I’m sure we can put together something simple and lovely in three weeks. I’m taking O’Brien to my dressmaker as soon as she can fit us in—I’ve told her it’ll be our bridal gift to her.”

“Not white silk and orange blossoms, I hope,” Grantham said, struggling to picture it.

“Of course not. I thought perhaps something she can wear for the ceremony and as a going away suit. I haven’t suggested this to O’Brien yet, but I wonder if Thomas should give her away? I feel he ought to be involved, somehow, since the marriage is going to mean so much for him.”

“He’s leaving this afternoon,” Grantham said hastily. “Findlater’s taking him down to London to be outfitted at his tailor, introduce him to his clubs, and so on.” And thank God for that—otherwise, Cora would probably try to strong-arm him into taking Thomas to his _own_ tailor. 

“He’ll be coming back for the wedding, of course. I think we must ask them to stay here the night before, don’t you?”

“I suppose we can hardly turn them out on the street,” Grantham admitted. “And I’m sure we won’t have filled their posts yet in only three weeks, so they can stay in their old rooms.”

“I mean they should stay as _guests_ ,” Cora corrected. “We can’t put an earl and a countess in the servants’ quarters.”

“Thomas is not an earl.” He had refused to believe it when Thomas told him, and had even been driven to consult his own solicitor by telephone. After a brief misunderstanding in which Murray tactfully, but with clear disapproval, explained that the stratagem could not apply to an English title (“even leaving aside how it would hardly be fair to Lady Grantham, begging your pardon, my lord,”), he had been assured that the peculiarity of Scottish law existed. 

“An earl’s heir, I mean. Lord Ogilvy, I suppose it would be.”

“Only through a legal fiction,” he insisted.

“What legal fiction do you mean?” Cora asked, in a sweetly dangerous tone. “If you mean marriage, may I remind you that I became a countess, and our daughters ladies, in precisely the same way?”

“That’s different. Our marriage was—correct.”

“Our family is in no position to cast stones about cross-class marriages _or_ premarital indiscretions,” she reminded him. “And it’s only through luck that--” she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Mary avoided O’Brien’s misfortune.”

“Of course,” Grantham said. He really didn’t want to think about it.

“If she hadn’t, I expect our only option would have been to pass the child as ours, which is even more irregular than what O’Brien and Findlater are doing.”

Grantham was prepared to agree to anything if Cora would only cease speaking about this subject. “Thomas and O’Brien must stay, if that’s what you think best. Do you know when they’ll be returning?”

“O’Brien has decided to continue working up until the day of—like Jane Eyre, she said.”

“Sounds a bit awkward,” Grantham said.

“I thought it was quite good of her. I decided the best thing will be for her to train Anna to replace her—housemaids are so much easier to find than a good lady’s maid, and she’s been seeing to the girls since they left the schoolroom. That way, O’Brien can gradually step back from her duties as Anna is ready to take them up. I think that will help ease the change for her.”

It sounded ghastly to Grantham, but as long as he wasn’t being asked to take Thomas under his wing in a similar way, he didn’t mind. “It’s your decision, of course.”

#

By luncheon, Thomas had packed his things and seen to all the little details of Grantham’s kit that he’d been putting off. He found himself roaming around the house, saying goodbye to all the places he’d known, with something surprisingly like actual regret. 

He’d lived here for so much of his life, he supposed it was natural to feel that he’d miss the old place. 

“Is it true you’re really going to be an earl?” Daisy asked as he wandered through the kitchen.

He wouldn’t miss the people. Except O’Brien, and she would be joining him in a few weeks. “Yes.”

“Are we supposed to call you Lord Thomas, then? I mean, I know you won’t be here, but if we met you in the street or something.”

“It’s in Scotland, so I don’t think you will,” Thomas pointed out. “But it’ll be Lord Ogilvy. The heir uses the family name.”

“Then why isn’t Mr. Crawley called Lord Crawley?”

“Because he isn’t his lordship’s son. He’s only heir presumptive; I’ll be heir apparent.”

“Mr. Barrow!” Carson said, from the doorway to the butler’s pantry. 

“Mr. Ogilvy, actually,” Thomas pointed out, wandering over. It would be pushing it, he knew, to insist on “Lord” before he was really entitled to it. 

“Call yourself whatever you like,” Carson allowed, as if he had any say in the matter. “If you’ve finished with your duties, it would be better for you to wait in your room and refrain from distracting the staff from their work.”

“I have finished, thanks,” Thomas said. “What’s the matter, Carson? Don’t you want the others to have a chance to wish me well? Be careful; anyone might think you’re jealous.”

“I am not envious, Mr. Ogilvy, I am appalled.” 

This was definitely more interesting than sitting in his room waiting for it to be time to meet the train. “I know the idea of me coming out on top of the heap has to sting, but really, you’re _appalled_ by the idea of a son being acknowledged by his father? Even if it is me?”

“I am appalled because I cannot imagine anyone less qualified to be an earl’s heir than you are,” Carson clarified. 

“Well, it turns out my dad’s an earl,” Thomas pointed out, “and he’s about to be married to my mother. As far as I know, those are the only qualifications.”

“There, you are mistaken,” Carson said. “Nobility has nothing to do with accidents of birth. A true lord—someone like Lord Grantham—is born and raised to a sense of responsibility for a place and its people. He understands that their welfare is in his keeping.”

“Mr. Crawley,” Thomas began. 

“Mr. Crawley has come into an understanding of his responsibilities,” Carson said. “I admit I had my doubts at the beginning, but he has proven himself suited to his future role, in a way that I cannot imagine you ever shall. Make no mistake, I am not appalled because you are illegitimate, or because your mother was a housemaid. Better men than you have overcome those deficiencies. I am appalled because you have demonstrated an utter lack of moral fiber that makes the prospect of your elevation to an earldom a slap in the face to the entire concept of inherited nobility.”

“Well,” Thomas said. “It’s a good thing nobody asked you.” He looked up, in an attitude of inspiration. “Except I believe Father did ask you, didn’t he? And yet, here I am. It’s almost like your opinions are completely irrelevant.”

#

“It occurs to me,” Findlater said on the train down to London, “that I never asked if you want to be my heir.” Findlater himself hadn’t gotten a choice—one didn’t, in the usual way of things—but since he’d had a choice about whether to make Thomas his heir or not, it was only fair that Thomas should have a chance to decline the honor. 

“Hm? Oh. Mother did,” Thomas said. He’d been staring out the window at the passing scenery, seeming deep in thought. 

“She did? Good. I take it you said yes?”

“Yes.” 

“I’m glad.” 

“I only hope I’ll be a worthy one,” Thomas said. 

It was that sort of thing that made Findlater wish the thing wasn’t moving forward quite so quickly—it had to leave the impression that Findlater had sought Thomas out in the first place in order to secure the future of the estate. In fact, he’d had no such thought in mind, although he did wonder if Mama had foreseen the possibility. “I’m sure you’ll be all right. You’ve plenty of time to learn.” That was one advantage of having fathered him so early in life, Findlater supposed. 

“I’ll do my best.”

Thomas was, if anything, more formal with Findlater than he had been before learning he was to be the heir, and Findlater couldn’t help but think that the weight of his new role would make it more difficult for them to really get to know each other. The trip to London would, at least, give Findlater some time with his son, before he had to share him with the estate. 

He hoped London was the right choice. They had to go somewhere. Hanging around Downton for three weeks would have been acutely uncomfortable for everyone—how Sarah could stand it, he had no idea—and Mama had been insistent that it was best to wait to bring Thomas to Huntingtower until he was officially its heir. He’d decided on London because he remembered how, the first time they really talked, Thomas had fondly remembered going to London to be fitted for livery when he first became a footman. Findlater thought he might enjoy marking this new change in his status in the same way—he needed to be kitted out anyway, so they might as well go to the London tailor Findlater sometimes used, and make an occasion of it. 

#

Thomas had been to London before, of course—the Granthams went down for at least part of the Season almost every year. But he discovered that it was a different place when you were a servant to when you were the son of an earl—or even the stepson, as Findlater introduced him to most of the men at his club, where they were putting up. 

The central business of the trip was getting Thomas fitted for the wardrobe of a young gentleman. The shop of Findlater’s tailor wasn’t as grand as Lord Grantham’s one, but Thomas found that they treated you much more nicely when you weren’t being fitted for livery—saying, “If you would be so good as to stand still, sir,” rather than “Stop wriggling or I’ll stick you with this pin,” for instance. Findlater had them run up a couple of town suits and dinner dress quickly, as well as a morning suit for the wedding, and a lot of country things to be sent directly up to Huntingtower. Tweeds of every description, tennis togs, riding things—nearly everything that Thomas had ever unpacked for a guest, he now had at least one set of. Findlater seemed determined to make sure that, whatever anyone thought, Thomas would at least look like he was meant to be the heir to a substantial peerage. 

But no matter how many clothes he was getting, fittings alone couldn’t fill all the time. Findlater seemed eager to show him off, taking Thomas round to a couple of other clubs, to dine with his friends, and to visit their laboratories and museum workrooms. Thomas struggled to pretend to be interested, since Findlater and his friends talked endlessly about arcane details of natural history. Sometimes, Findlater would show him around the public galleries at a museum. Thomas liked that a bit more, since if his friends weren’t there, Findlater was willing to explain things in a way Thomas could follow. 

Nobody sneered at him, to his face at least, and Thomas even found himself invited to a few things on his own, theatre parties and small suppers and so on. He was a little disappointed not to get to go to a ball, but at this stage of the Season, there wasn’t much chance of that even if he had been legitimate. 

One afternoon they were spending at the club, a large parcel arrived, and was greeted with excitement by Findlater. “I asked Mama to send this down,” he explained. “It’s a history of Huntingtower that my grandfather did up—it’s a bit outdated, but it should give you the idea of the place.”

The word “place” uncomfortably echoed what Carson had said—words Thomas had been trying to put out of his mind, but that kept coming back to him at the worst moments. “Yes, I’m eager to come to know the place,” he said quickly. That was probably the sort of thing he was expected to say. 

As they looked over it together, with Findlater pointing out and explaining details of the pictures, it seemed to Thomas as though Findlater was nearly as anxious that he should like the house, as Thomas was that Findlater should like him. He couldn’t see any reason why he would be, and decided he must have imagined it.

“You can see our coat of arms, here in the old hall,” he said, displaying it. Thomas could just barely make out what looked like lions. “You’ve been armigerous all along, incidentally,” he added. “Entitled to bear arms, that means.”

“I know what it means. Really?” _Take that, Carson,_ he thought. 

“Yes—that’s another way Scottish practice differs from the rest of Britain. ‘Bastard arms,’ they call them. They would have been differentiated from mine with a _bordure gabony,_ a checkered border. But you’ll have the standard ones after the wedding.”

“I’d been wondering,” Thomas said. “Why it’s different in Scotland. I mean, I understand if it was an English title, I wouldn’t be able to inherit, no matter what you and Mama did.” He had been trying out different ways of referring to O’Brien. This was the first time he’d attempted “Mama,” and he decided immediately never to say it again; it sounded ridiculous. 

“I’m not sure there’s really a reason,” Findlater said. “Ours is the older practice—in the middle ages, allowing legitimated children to succeed to the title was the general custom, all over Britain. England, Ireland, and Wales decided to change the rules; we kept the original tradition. I’m surprised Grandpapa didn’t include a section about it in the book, since his father was legitimated, but I suppose he didn’t like to remind people.” He shook his head. “I don’t accept that it makes a difference, where you and I are concerned. You’re as much my son as you would be if Sarah and I had married thirty years ago. It only matters in the eyes of the world, as far as the title goes.”

Thomas nodded. “I’m sure I’d have been a little more prepared for all this, if you had been.” As the son of a younger son, he wouldn’t have expected to inherit, but there wouldn’t be any question that he was the right sort of person for it. 

“You shouldn’t have to worry about the earldom for a long time,” Findlater said. “For now, you might think of Huntingtower simply as your new home.”

He hadn’t had one of those since Mum and Dad died. At the front, he’d thought of Downton as “home,” but he’d known it wasn’t. If he’d been magically transported there, he’d have received, at best, a cold welcome, and likely none at all. It was tempting to think that Huntingtower might be different. But he had had a home, once, and one thing he knew about it was that they didn’t check your references before they let you in the door. 

But Findlater was looking at him, waiting for a response, so Thomas just smiled and said, “Yes, of course. That might be best. Which was your room when you were growing up?”

“Hm? Oh, we mostly live in the new wing—it had just been built in my grandfather’s time, so there aren’t as many pictures….”

#

“O’Brien, I hope you’ll join Mrs. Crawley and me for tea tomorrow afternoon,” Lady Grantham said one afternoon, about a week after Thomas’s departure, as O’Brien was fixing her hair for the afternoon.

“I beg your pardon, my lady?”

“As you’re going to be a countess, and the mother of an heir, I’m sure the three of us will find a great deal to discuss.”

O’Brien didn’t know what to say. 

“Of course, if you wouldn’t be comfortable….”

“No, my lady, that’s very kind. It’s just—I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I’d been looking at it as all a way to make Thomas the heir; I nearly forgot I’m to be a countess.” Even saying it sounded absurd. “Fancy that—me, a countess.”

“It struck me nearly the same way, when it was my turn,” Lady Grantham confided. “And you might begin calling me Cora, if you like.”

“Yes…Cora. I should be glad to accept your kind invitation to tea.” She felt an unfamiliar tug at the muscles of her face; it was only by glancing in her ladyship’s mirror that she recognized it as a smile.

#

Funnily enough, it was the sight of his new visiting cards that made it all seem real to Thomas. They came from the engraver a few days before he and Findlater were due to go back to Downton for the wedding, with “Thomas, Lord Ogilvy” in the middle, plain as day, and “Huntingtower Castle” in the corner. 

In the back of his mind, he realized, he’d been thinking of the whole thing as an elaborate game of make-believe. Being shown around London and bought clothes for was an exciting novelty—was, in fact, something he’d daydreamed about before, though he’d imagined slightly different circumstances. Visiting cards were firm reality. For a moment, he wanted to run to his father—or better yet, his mother—and say that he couldn’t possibly be Lord Ogilvy; he had no idea how. 

O’Brien, he knew, would remind him that he had seen plenty of Lord So-and-So’s in his day, and he knew how they behaved. The thought was comforting. She might even remind him that he’d had no idea how to be a footman when he started that, either, and he’d picked it up quickly enough. 

A few days later, they arrived at Downton, and were shown into the drawing room by Carson, who appeared to be doing his best to pretend Thomas was a coat rack. 

Taking tea with the family felt like a dream—not in the sense that it was the fulfillment of a long-cherished wish, but a real dream, like the kind where you were waiting at table in your pajamas or the fish course started talking, and nobody else seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. If anyone had asked him a month ago, he would have expected to enjoy it—particularly the part where Carson had to serve him—but mostly, he just felt uncomfortable as he listened to the others make stilted conversation and stared at his teacup. It was the set he’d broken one of during his second week here. He remembered genuinely fearing that Mr. Carson might kill him. 

Eventually, the party broke up into smaller groups. Thomas had hoped to have a chance to talk to O’Brien alone, but Lady Grantham herded Findlater in her direction instead, and Thomas found himself next to Mr. Crawley. 

“Well,” Mr. Crawley said. “You look about like I felt the first time I visited here.”

“Oh?” Thomas said, trying for supercilious and missing by at least a mile.

“Believe me, I remember what it’s like to suddenly find out you’re going to be an earl. Have you gotten past the stage where you expect someone to pop out and admit it’s all been a big practical joke, yet?”

“A few days ago,” Thomas admitted, startled into frankness. 

“Ah, then you must be in the part where you feel like there’s no way you can possibly do it, and it might be better if they gave the whole lot to a shaved ape. It lasts about a year, in my experience.”

“That long?” Thomas asked faintly. 

“It becomes less acute. Remember to breathe. Makes it less likely you’ll faint or vomit.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Still,” Crawley said in an encouraging tone, “at least you have some experience of this way of life. You’ll know what to do about staff and so on.”

“It’s a bit different from this side of things,” Thomas said. Thinking, _why the hell not?_ , he confided, “Turns out knowing how to valet someone doesn’t mean you know how to be valeted, for instance. At Findlater’s club, I kept bumping into the man they sent up to do for me, when we’d both start to reach for the clothes-brush or the cufflinks at the same time. It doesn’t feel right to just stand there.”

“I know precisely what you mean,” Crawley said. “I can’t tell you how long it was before I stopped feeling like a priceless ass having Molesey dress me.” 

When Carson rang the dressing gong, Thomas found himself turning for Lord Grantham’s dressing room, out of habit. Fortunately, he managed to remember himself before he got there, and back-tracked to the bachelor corridor. 

He was not surprised to have been put in the very smallest of the rooms there. It was still twice as big, and many times more luxurious, than his old room on the menservants’ corridor. His cases had been left, still packed, on the bed. Automatically, he started unpacking them. Unpacking a gentleman-guest’s bags was something he’d done a hundred times at Downton. How strange that he was doing it for the last time, and they were his own things. 

Before he was half-finished, there was a knock at the door. He opened it, hoping for O’Brien. Instead, one of the hall-boys was there, an ill-fitting livery coat put on in place of his apron. It might have been Thomas’s old one, in fact. “Mr. Carson sent me up to valet you,” he said. 

“Really.” It was an obvious insult, so the best thing to do was to pretend not to notice. “Have you ever valeted anyone before?”

“No, I haven’t. Sir.”

“Well, you’ve got to learn sometime. Come in, I’ll talk you through it.”

#

“You look every bit the part, now that you’ve lost that stunned carp expression you had when you first came into the library,” O’Brien said. They were in the drawing room, waiting to be called into dinner, and it was the first chance she’d had to speak to Thomas privately. 

“Thanks,” he said. “You look…nice.” 

“It’s one of her ladyship’s frocks we had altered.” It was black, like her usual, but with beading on some of it, and more décolletage than she was used to. She had the impression Thomas didn’t quite know where to look. 

“I don’t know why Findlater didn’t splash out on you like he did me. You should see all the new clothes I’ve got.”

“Because if a man buys clothes for a lady before they’re married, it implies she’s being kept as his mistress,” O’Brien explained. “I’ll be seeing the Dowager Countess’s dressmaker once we’re at Huntingtower.”

“I suppose that’s all right, then.” He looked around. “I imagine someone’ll notice if we nip outside for a smoke.”

“Yes, more’s the pity,” O’Brien said. “At least you can smoke after dinner if you like. I’ll have to wait till we go up.” That ladies didn’t smoke where anyone could see them was the biggest adjustment she’d had to make so far. Bigger even than how, a little before dinner, she and Cora fastened each other’s dresses up the back, “like sisters,” Cora said, although to the best of O’Brien’s knowledge, the Crawley girls had never once done anything of the kind. 

Lady Grantham drifted over. “Mr. Ogilvy, I hope you won’t mind taking your mother in to dinner.”

The stunned carp expression made a brief reappearance, before Thomas said, “I’d be delighted.”

After she’d gone, O’Brien confided, “She meant to have Findlater take me in, and give you to Lady Edith, but his lordship put his foot down. You’re going to be sitting between me and Mrs. Crawley, so none of the real ladies have to talk to you.”

“I don’t think I mind,” Thomas said, with a slight shudder. “This is all pretty nerve-wracking.”

“You’re not the one getting married in the morning,” she reminded him. 

#

Grantham had managed to occupy himself with the business of the estate all afternoon, and so avoid what he imagined must have been an excruciatingly awkward tea, but at dinner, his presence was required.

He’d gotten used to dining with O’Brien—Miss Byrnes, they were supposed to call her now, until tomorrow—since Cora had had her dining with them for the last week, but in the drawing room before dinner, he kept catching sight of Thomas out of the corner of his eye and wondering what he was doing standing around instead of working. Evening dress did look a lot like livery. He supposed he ought to go over and talk to him—Thomas was, although the mind rebelled at the thought, a guest. But every time he looked, Thomas appeared to be in intense conversation with O’Brien, so Grantham decided not to interrupt their reunion, and concentrated his duties as host on Findlater instead. 

Carson had made all sorts of dire predictions about how Thomas would behave, putting on airs, and demanding to be treated as Lord Ogilvy, even though he had not yet attained that status, but Grantham could find no fault with his conduct. He took his mother in and helped her into her chair—a process which seemed to amuse both of them—held his fork like a gentleman, and observed the turning of the table, talking to O’Brien and Mrs. Crawley in turn, at the appropriate times, while making no effort to intrude on conversations that did not involve him, a detail which showed a nice appreciation of the delicacy of the situation. Grantham could only be grateful that he was being reasonable enough to make the situation tolerable. 

Carson himself, Grantham could not as entirely approve of. He had declared, a few days ago, that he would hand in his notice before he dressed the future Lord Ogilvy. Grantham had assured him that such a course of action would not be required, but he did not seem much mollified. His manner when serving Thomas was decidedly chilly, and several times he addressed Thomas as “Mister Ogilvy” in what struck Grantham as a tone bordering on the sarcastic. Thomas pretended not to notice, but Grantham could tell that Findlater had, and was not particularly pleased.

It wasn’t a particularly grand dinner—Cora had been anxious not to overburden the servants with a complicated menu; since they were to take part in the festivities at the wedding breakfast, they had to do as much of the preparation as possible the night before—so it was after only little more than an hour that the ladies went out. Grantham dismissed Carson and handed round the port himself. After they’d drunk to the bride’s health, he gave Findlater a cigar and then, since not to do so would have seemed pointed, offered the box to Thomas.

“I’ll smoke my own, thanks,” Thomas said. He took one of his awful little gaspers out of a silver cigarette case and lit it, looking as if he expected Grantham to smack it out of his hand. 

“For Goodness’ sake, Thom—Ogilvy, I’m not going to bite you,” Grantham said, exasperated. 

“ _Carson_ might,” Thomas muttered. 

“I should apologize for Carson,” Grantham said, addressing himself to the air somewhere between Thomas and Findlater. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it to Thomas, but he didn’t feel he could let the insult to Findlater go unremarked-upon. “Guests are usually treated with more courtesy in this house.”

“t’s all right,” Thomas said, surprisingly. “I expect I’d be worse, if it was Daisy or William or somebody.”

Grantham had to laugh, both at the image, and with surprise that Thomas would say so. “Yes, I imagine you would.”

“I’m sure things will be more comfortable for you at Huntingtower,” Findlater added. “As no-one there knew you before.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Matthew offered. “The first time I entered Downton as its future master, I felt like I was about six years old and might wet myself.”

“That’s very reassuring, thanks,” Thomas said. 

“I didn’t _actually_ wet myself,” Matthew pointed out. 

#

The next morning, Findlater spent the time between dressing and leaving for the church checking and re-checking to ensure that he had the ring. He had moved it from his trouser pocket to his waistcoat pocket, taken it out of the box, put it back in, and taken it out again, in short exploring every possible permutation of how to carry it, when Thomas let himself in, saying, “I came to see if they had the hall-boy valet you like they did me, and fix whatever he got wrong if they did.”

“No, Carson assisted me,” Findlater assured him. But he stood up anyway, and let Thomas check that everything was correct. “Is your mother ready?”

“Not sure,” Thomas said, sitting down in an armchair. “All the women are in Lady Grantham’s dressing room, and they wouldn’t let me in. Then I tried to check on things in the kitchen, but Carson chased me out.”

“Well, only role we men have in these things is to show up on time and avoid losing the ring,” Findlater pointed out. “Would you like a drink? I think I’ll have one.”

“All right.” 

Findlater fixed the drinks, then sat down in the other armchair. “It’ll be quite late before we reach Huntingtower.” They had been over the schedule before, but saying it again filled the air, at least. The exchange of vows was set for noon, followed by the wedding breakfast—which wasn’t really breakfast at all, but a sort of early tea—and then the afternoon train to Scotland. “I don’t imagine Mama will stay up; you’ll meet her tomorrow.”

“Right,” Thomas said. 

“There’s nothing to worry about there. She’s already made up her mind to like you, and Mama is not one to change her mind lightly.” She plainly still considered embracing Sarah to be a necessary evil, but Findlater had extracted a promise that she wouldn’t do anything to make his bride and the mother of the heir feel unwelcome, which he supposed was as far as he was likely to get. 

“That’s good to hear.” 

“She’s very anxious to see you launched in local society, such as it is,” Findlater warned. “You must say so if you begin to find it a bit much. She has, she just informed me, invited a number of young people—people your age, she means—for the opening of the grouse, but that’s the only thing that’s absolutely unavoidable, since they’ve already been asked.” He hesitated. “Do you know how to shoot?”

“No,” Thomas said. “Not that kind of shooting, anyway.”

Right, Findlater supposed that even in the medical corps, the Army would have taught him to use a rifle. “I’ll teach you,” he said. “I’ve never gone in for it much myself—James was the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ one in our family—but I know the essentials. And if you decide you’re really interested, the gamekeeper can instruct you in the finer points.”

“I’ve waited at table for shooting party luncheons,” Thomas said. “But I don’t suppose that will be much help.”

“Probably not,” Findlater admitted. “Do they have it outdoors on the grounds, here?” 

Thomas nodded. “With a pavilion, if it’s wet.”

“We have the luncheon at the house. Those who are really keen find it an annoyance, going back to the house in the middle of things, but we’ve always done it that way. Makes it a bit more interesting for the ladies, I suppose.” He considered. “I don’t imagine you ride, either.”

“No.”

“I hope you’ll consider learning. I’ve rather taken it up, since the war. With my leg the way it is now, I can’t walk out for hours over all kinds of ground, like I used to. We can use the motor or the dog-cart for visiting the tenant farms and so forth, but one must leave the roads to really see the countryside. It was so important to me, as a boy…and with your mother. I should like to be the one to show it to you.”

“That…sounds very nice.” 

“The head groom’s found some very steady animals for me,” he added, “since my leg is weak, and I was never much of a horseman to begin with. So I’m sure we’re well prepared for a beginner.”

“I’m sure I can manage a bit of hacking out, with a few lessons,” Thomas agreed. “I’m not sure I’d want to try riding to hounds any time soon, but.”

“I always tried to avoid that myself,” Findlater said. “We hunt deer from horseback, in Scotland, as well as the occasional fox. Always struck me as a bit savage, really. At least the fox has more of an equal footing—and he kills chickens.”

#

Walking O’Brien down the aisle of the church, then taking a seat in the front pew while she exchanged vows with an earl, was the strangest experience of a month of strange experiences. Thomas had the most horrible feeling that he was going to burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all. By the time the vicar told them to kiss, he had to take out a handkerchief and pretend to be crying to avoid making a worse spectacle of himself. 

The wedding breakfast was nearly a refreshing breath of normality, because all of the staff was there, as well as the family, making it a bit like the Servants’ Ball, only in the daytime and less grand. And filled with people toasting the health and happiness of the couple, every time they couldn’t think what else to say. Findlater also made everyone drink to the health of the new Lord Ogilvy, which Thomas, while he appreciated the gesture, found more embarrassing than gratifying. Unfortunately, he couldn’t manage to look at Carson quickly enough to be certain of whether he’d refused to do it or not.

After an hour or so, the servants started saying their goodbyes and going back to work, then the family. 

“Good luck,” said Matthew Crawley, shaking his hand. “And don’t forget to breathe.”

“Thanks—and to you, too. On the wedding and everything.”

Beside them, Lady Grantham was embracing O’Brien, saying, “Dear Sarah, I’m so happy for you. I do hope you’ll write.”

“Of course, my lady,” she said, sounding surprised. “Cora.”

“Have you made your farewells to Downton?” Lady Grantham continued. “If you want to have a last look at any favorite spots, I hope you will feel free to do so.”

“Actually,” O’Brien said, “I’ve been wanting to step out into the kitchen courtyard one more time, for old time’s sake.”

Lady Grantham managed to look only a little bit surprised. The kitchen courtyard was, doubtless, not high on her list of Downton’s beauty spots. “Well then, you must.”

“Should I come too, Mother?” Thomas asked. They had settled on the solidly middle class “mother” as how he would refer to O’Brien—it was a little more respectable than “mum,” and not as wildly implausible as “mama.” 

“Yes, do.”

They nipped down the servants’ staircase, meeting Mrs. Hughes on the way. She looked at them oddly, but didn’t try to stop them. It had started to drizzle, so they backed up under the overhang of the roof, as they had done so many times before. Thomas started to lean against the wall, then realized it was no better to do that in his wedding suit than in livery, and stood up straight instead. He took out his new silver cigarette case and offered it to O’Brien. “A cigarette, Lady Findlater?”

“Why thank you, Lord Ogilvy,” she answered, taking one. 

He lit it for her with a flourish, and they smoked, looking out at the rain. 

“If your mum and dad could see you now,” she said. “The young master of Huntingtower.”

“It’s a sight grander than being a solicitor,” he agreed. “Let alone a footman.”

“You aren’t a footman anymore,” she reminded him. “And mind you remember it when you get there. The servants will know what we’ve been—you know as well as I do that there’s no way of keeping it from them—but we can’t let them think they can take advantage.”

“I know,” Thomas said. It was going to be strange, being waited on, when he knew what it was like to do the waiting. It never occurred to people like the Granthams that servants had opinions of their own, and might judge them, but he knew that they did, and would. 

“You’ll have to insist on every courtesy that’s due to you.”

“Findlater will stand up for me, if there’s any trouble.” 

“ _Father_ ,” she correctly sharply. “If you go round calling him by his name, they’ll know you’re not confident of your position.” 

With that, she stubbed out her cigarette, and they went to meet the motor that would take them to the train.


	2. Part Two

“Dear Sarah, how lovely to see you again,” said the Dowager Countess, in a voice that could have frozen boiling lava. 

“And you as well,” O’Brien answered, clearly answering both the words and the intent. 

In decidedly less frosty tones, the old lady continued, “And you must be Thomas.”

Remembering Mr. Crawley’s advice, Thomas took a deep breath, to make it less likely he’d faint or vomit. “I am,” he agreed, carefully not adding, “my lady.” He didn’t have the nerve to try “grandmamma” in her presence just yet. 

“Come stand in the light, so I can get a look at you.”

Thomas did so, making his own covert inspection of the Dowager Countess as he did so. Both O’Brien and Findlater had led him to expect something in the line of a fire-breathing gorgon. It was a surprise to be confronted, instead, with a small, frail-looking old woman in a dressing gown, propped up in an armchair with an assortment of blankets and pillows. But there was something formidable about her, nonetheless. Thomas had no doubt that he was here not to meet his grandmother, but to audition for the role of Findlater’s heir. Even though he already had the position—in fact, it would be very difficult for him to lose it—Thomas knew that he’d regret it if he muffed this interview. 

“Tom said you were a footman,” she said, after looking at him for a long moment.

“Yes,” Thomas said. He decided not to contradict her with the point that he had been a valet for a short time. 

“Hmph. I suppose you’re tall enough.” 

“Mama,” Findlater protested. “He isn’t a horse you’re thinking of buying.”

She snorted. “I suppose not. Sit down.” She indicated a chair across from hers, and waved Findlater and O’Brien onto a settee. 

After they had been seated, the Dowager rang a small bell, and a maid brought in tea. “You may pour,” she told O’Brien.

O’Brien, wisely, didn’t argue. 

As she handed the cups around, the Dowager asked Thomas what he made of the house.

“I haven’t had a chance to see as much of it as I’d like yet,” Thomas said. They’d been summoned to the Dowager’s boudoir almost immediately after breakfast. “It seems to have a great deal of historical interest.” His great-grandfather’s book said so, anyway. 

The response was, apparently, not unacceptable. “It is indeed,” she said. “I’m sure your mother can tell you a great deal about it.”

“I’m not sure how much I remember,” O’Brien said. “I was here for such a short time.”

“And so long ago,” the Dowager agreed, with what only a very stupid person could mistake for sympathy. “I hope the train journey wasn’t too taxing.”

It wasn’t clear which of them she was addressing, so after a moment Thomas volunteered that it had been quite pleasant. 

“I suppose you’re accustomed to travelling in the less comfortable section of the train,” she said with a sniff.

“I didn’t spend much time in first class when I was a footman,” Thomas agreed. 

“One of many changes you’ll have to get used to,” she said, then asked abruptly, “Do you ride, Thomas?”

“I’m eager to learn,” Thomas said, glad that Findlater had mentioned the subject yesterday. She likely knew he didn’t, or would quickly find out, so it was best not to lie. “Shooting, as well. I understand you’ve invited some young people.”

“I only hope you can be ready in time.” 

“I plan to help him, Mama,” Findlater spoke up. “But he doesn’t have to shoot if he doesn’t like to. Or ride, for that matter.”

“But he does want to,” the Dowager said. “Don’t you, Thomas?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I don’t suppose your former life afforded you the leisure for such things.”

“It didn’t,” Thomas agreed. “Unfortunately.” 

After a few more questions, the Dowager said, “Tom, ring for Avery. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m quite weary from all the excitement.”

Findlater did so, and Thomas and O’Brien trooped out, O’Brien pulling the door nearly closed behind them. Thomas started for the stairs, but O’Brien held up her hand to stop him, inclining her head meaningfully at the door. 

He returned to her side, and heard the Dowager saying, “He has nice manners, at least, and his accent is not entirely unbearable.” 

Before they could hear any more, the maid—presumably Avery—came into view, and they left quickly, so they wouldn’t be seen listening at keyholes. 

#

“He has nice manners, at least, and his accent is not entirely unbearable,” Mama said. “And I do like to see good posture in a young person—so unusual these days. I expect it comes of his training as a footman, but every cloud has a silver lining, doesn’t it? We may be able to make a suitable heir out of him—particularly as we haven’t any choice.”

“Mama,” Findlater protested. 

“We haven’t,” she reminded him. “I suppose that little indiscretion of yours turned out to have been a stroke of luck after all.”

“He isn’t an indiscretion. He is my son.” 

“You needn’t be so touchy, dear. I was referring to the circumstances, not Thomas himself.”

“Very well,” Findlater said, only somewhat mollified. “But I didn’t bring him here to be the heir. I brought him here to be my son.”

“What on Earth do you imagine is the difference?” she asked, with honest confusion.

Before Findlater could begin to formulate an answer, Avery arrived to help Mama back to bed. 

#

“Fine morning, your lordship,” said Jamie, the footman who was serving as Thomas’s valet for the time being, as he dragged open the curtains. “Your bath’s ready, and don’t forget you’re going round the farms with his lordship directly after breakfast.”

“Yes, I know,” Thomas said, throwing his arm over his eyes. Being a lord meant you got woken up a good two hours later than when you were a valet, but you still weren’t allowed to lie abed as long as you wanted, most days, at least. 

“Your tea, my lord,” Jamie said, finished with the curtains and now shoving a tray in his face. 

He sat up with a groan and gulped it down, then reached for his dressing gown. They’d been at Huntingtower two weeks, long enough for Findlater— _Father_ , he reminded himself—to show him all around the house and grounds, making him known to all of the indoor and outdoor staff, and for him to have taken tea with the Dowager Countess several times, and to have had a riding lesson or two, discovering that horses seemed a lot bigger when you were sitting on top of one. But today was to be his debut with the tenants and then, in the afternoon, with some of the neighbors. 

Throughout the last week, many—though by no means all—of the ladies of the nearby country houses had come to leave their cards, but they had been denied the opportunity to, as O’Brien put it, gawk. But the Dowager Countess had put out that she and her new daughter-in-law would be at home to callers that afternoon. Thomas wasn’t strictly required to be there, but he and O’Brien both thought it was best to let them see the whole dog-and-pony show at once, so that they didn’t have to put up with those who just wanted to be able to say they’d seen the housemaid-turned-Countess and her bastard son coming a second time. 

After bathing and being dressed in a country suit, Thomas made his way down to the dining room. It was in the old East Tower, where the medieval hall had been. He couldn’t help thinking about what an appalling distance it was from the kitchens in what everyone called the ‘New House’—an additional wing that had been added by the Eighth Earl and was, by now, nearly ninety years old. Still, he supposed a Victorian kitchen was easier for the cook and kitchen maids to work in than a medieval one would be. And he wasn’t the one carrying trays all that way, so what difference did it make?

Father was already there, looking through the post, an abandoned plate of toast pushed half out of the way. Even though he never had anything more than tea, toast, and maybe a bit of bacon if there was any, and the Dowager Countess always had a tray in her room, the sideboard was laden with a large bowl of fruit, breads and muffins of various kinds, and two warming dishes, one which always held porridge (which nobody ever touched) and the other holding kedgeree, or kippers, or some other hot dish. 

Today it was deviled kidneys. They’d probably reappear at the servants’ dinner, Thomas thought, glad that he wouldn’t have to eat them. He took a cup of tea and some grapes and sat down. As soon as his arse hit the chair, Charlie, the other footman, came in with a fresh rack of toast. 

“The Canadians think they’ve discovered a new type of dinosaur,” Father reported, looking up from his post. 

“Have they?” Father’s letters, Thomas had learned, tended to revolve around that sort of news, in the same way that Lady Grantham’s revolved around the announcements of marriages, engagements, and births. 

“Likely not. Usually these things turn out to be a juvenile example of a known species, or two animals mixed together, something like that. Pettigrew is going over to check it out.”

Was he supposed to know who Pettigrew was? He could be one of Father’s friends; on the other hand, an authority referred to by surname was just as likely to be a book. But no, if Pettigrew was going to Canada, he must be a man and not a book. “Is he the one at the British Museuem?” Thomas hazarded.

“Yes—you remember, we saw him in London. He had that Pterosaur humerus.” 

“Yes, I remember now.” He’d been surprised to learn that those pictures you saw of what dinosaurs must have looked like were often based on just a handful of fossil bones, which the scientists put together like a jigsaw and somehow figured out what the missing bits must look like. Often they started out with just a couple of vertebrae or teeth or something; both Pettigrew and Father had been practically giddy about having a whole arm-bone to play around with. 

Reluctantly, Father folded his letter and put it back in the envelope. “I think we’ll start with the Greys’ farm, then proceed to the Fletchers’, and the Mackies’, and so on for as many as we can manage before we have to start back. How does that sound?”

If Thomas correctly recalled the maps he had studied, that meant they’d be starting going north from the house, and making a clockwise loop. “That sounds fine.”

“We could do all the dairies first, and then the sheep-farms, and so on, but that means a great deal more driving,” Father said. “And following a strictly geographical course makes it plain we aren’t favoring anyone.” 

“Right,” said Thomas. If the tenant farmers had any sense, they’d see their Lord and Master showing up, poking around and disrupting everybody’s work, as more of an annoyance than an honor, but they probably didn’t. Have any sense, that is. 

After a while, Father said, “Your mother must be having a tray in her room. I’m sure she has a great deal to do to prepare for this afternoon.”

Thomas couldn’t begin to imagine _what_ \--all she had to do was get dressed, and she had the Dowager Countess’s lady’s maid to do that for her—but he agreed politely. 

“Well. Shall we get started?”

They went in the motor, driven by Simpson-the-chauffeur (as distinct from Simpson-the-butler, his father). The tenant farms all started to blur together in Thomas’s mind before he’d even finished seeing the second one. At each one there was a house and outbuildings set down in whatever bit sheltered valley the immediate landscape provided. At each one, whatever women and children were visible when they arrived hurried inside as soon as the motor was spotted, while a man in work clothes showed them a lot of cows or pigs or something, often identifying each animal by its Christian name, and sometimes those of its parents. Father and the man in question would talk about drainages or subsidence or something, often ending with Father assuring the farmer that he’d speak to Baxter about whatever it was, and asking Thomas to make a note of it in a notebook he’d brought along for the purpose. 

Then the farmer would look toward the house and say something like, “Well, I’m sure t’missus would enjoy to see the new heir, if you’ve the time for it, my lord.” Father would say that of course they did, and they’d go into the house. Here things varied a little—in the larger farmhouses, they were received in a “best parlour” that clearly saw little use except for Sundays and occasions like this one; in the smaller cottages, they were shown apologetically into a great room that served as kitchen, dining room, and family sitting room all at the same time. In each place, however, they’d be invited to review a line of freshly-scrubbed children who, much like the cows and pigs, would be presented by name, but—unlike the livestock—would bow or curtsey according to their sex. Then the farmwife would serve tea in whatever passed for the house’s best china, usually accompanied by a bit of cake or cheese or the like, always offered with a recital of which ingredients had been produced on the farm. Then Father would say something complimentary about it—even at the place where it was only bread-and-butter, he said, “I’m convinced that the grazing here produces the best butter in the county,” which led the wife to send them away with a pound of the stuff, wrapped in paper. 

“I’m sure they can’t spare this,” Thomas pointed out, hefting the parcel, once they were back in the car. That cottage had been the poorest of the lot, so far, and the people there ought to know as well as anyone that Huntingtower had no need of a pound of free butter. No wonder some people were poor, if they went around doing things like that.

“I know, but what can you do? I can’t offer to pay for it; it would be insulting.” He considered. “I’ll have something sent up from the home farm. Basket of apples or the like.” 

That hadn’t quite been what Thomas had meant, but he said he thought it was a good idea.

#

“Don’t worry, dear,” the Dowager Lady Findlater said, patting O’Brien’s hand. “I’m sure at least some of the neighbors will come, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else.” 

“That’s kind of you to say,” O’Brien said, even though she knew the old Countess hadn’t meant it that way at all. O’Brien wouldn’t have minded if nobody did come, except that it would give Lady Findlater something more to sneer about, and that Tom would be upset if they were snubbed completely. He was eager for Thomas to be accepted in the neighborhood, and that couldn’t happen if his mother was a pariah nobody called on. 

At least the trip round the farms had gone well, or so Tom and Thomas had reported before going up to change into clothes that didn’t smell like a barnyard. Not that any of the tenant farmers would dare say anything to their lord’s face, if they knew which side their bread was buttered on. She was sure that tongues began to wag before the dust of the motor had settled. 

“I hope you aren’t too tired,” she said to her mother-in-law, to fill the air. Exactly how she was “not well” had not been specified, but the Dowager spent most of her time in bed. She’d even dined in her room most nights, with Tom assuring both of them that it was what she usually did. “Just to dress and manage all those stairs is difficult for her,” he’d said. She’d received both of them in her room for tea on their second day, and had had Thomas back several more times. 

“So kind of you to ask, my dear,” the Dowager said. “One does what one must.”

Thomas came down, dressed in the best of his sack suits. “Grandmamma,” he said, kissing that lady’s cheek, then turning to her with a smirk. “Mother. Father’s going over things with Baxter,” he explained. Looking at the Dowager, he added, “He says you’ll know if there’s anyone he particularly wants to see, and send Simpson for him. Otherwise he’ll take tea in his laboratory when he’s finished with Baxter.”

“Of course,” the Dowager said. “One can’t keep Tom from his microscope and pipettes all day. I say that as one who has tried.”

Thomas smiled slightly, taking a seat next to O’Brien on the sofa. “I think his leg’s bothering him. We did a fair bit of walking.”

The doorbell rang. Thomas managed not to look as if he wanted to get up and answer it personally. A moment later, Simpson came to the drawing room and announced, “The Lady of Kinnoul, Lady Imogene, and Lady Rose.”

In sailed a matron of about forty, followed by a young woman of perhaps twenty, and a girl who still had her hair down. Thomas stood while the ladies shook hands with the Dowager and were introduced to Lady Findlater and Lord Ogilvy.

Once they were seated, and cups of tea passed around, Lady Kinnoul said, “I hope you’re becoming settled in our little corner of the countryside, Lady Findlater. I always think it must seem so remote, to those who come from other places.”

“It was much more isolated when I was here as a girl,” O’Brien said. If Lady Kinnoul was hoping to catch her out hiding her past, that would show her.

“Oh, I didn’t know you had been here before,” the lady said. 

“I suppose that must have, since she knows Lord Findlater,” the older daughter pointed out. 

“Imogene,” her mother said warningly. 

“I think it’s terribly romantic,” she continued, ignoring her mother. “Star-crossed lovers and a long-lost son.” 

“Indeed,” said the Dowager, her tone leaving no doubt that the subject of conversation was closed. “I think the day is very fine, don’t you? Such a nice change after all the rain we’ve had.”

#

Several more parties called. Some ladies and their daughters, some ladies bringing their daughters’ cards but not the daughters themselves; a few ladies of the Dowager Countess’s vintage who came alone and, after a brief acknowledgement of the introductions, said nothing to either him or O’Brien. 

Thomas knew from observation that this was precisely the sort of thing ladies did nearly every day, taking it in turns being the ones making visits and the ones being visited. No wonder Lady Sybill had jumped at the chance to take up nursing when the war started—this was, if anything, even more boring than being a footman. At least if you were a footman you got to walk around, and when you were downstairs you didn’t have to act like you were a waxwork. 

“Mrs. Cunningham, Miss Cunningham, and Mr. Walter Cunningham,” Simpson-the-butler announced. 

“I will take my leave,” said the lady who was conversing with the Dowager Countess at the time, popping up from her chair like she was on springs. She managed to scuttle out the door without having to nod to the Cunninghams. Thomas was interested already.

Mr. Walter was a few years younger than Thomas, and not particularly handsome—red-haired and beaky-nosed. Still, he was the first man caller of the day, which made him automatically more appealing than any of the others. His sister was a little younger than he, maybe twenty. 

Once the introductions had been made, Walter took the chair catty-corner from Thomas. “Pleased to meet you, Lord Ogilvy,” he said.

Thomas examined the way he’d said ‘pleased’ from all angles, but couldn’t find anything in it. If Walter Cunningham was even the faintest shade of lavender, he hid it well. Damn. “Pleased to meet you too, Mr. Cunningham.”

“Walter, if you like,” he offered. “How are you liking the place?”

Thomas said that he was liking it quite well.

“I’d like to be down in London,” Walter said, “but the guv’nor wants me up here with mater and Polly. I think it must be the most ghastly dull spot on the planet.”

“I’ve heard some parts of Siberia are worse,” Thomas answered. It would have been cheek if he’d still been a footman. Since he wasn’t, it was wit. 

“It’s not so bad if you like riding,” Polly said from Walter’s other side. 

“Or during the grouse season,” Walter agreed. “Even if you don’t like hunting them, it’s the one time of year everyone with a country house in Scotland is bound to be in it, and they all invite guests, so there are lots of parties.” 

“During the war there weren’t,” Polly pointed out. “And not even last year, really, or not so much as usual.”

“The war has put a lot of fellows off shooting,” Thomas said. That was the explanation made for not having many shooting parties at Downton last year, at least, and it made sense to him. He wasn’t sure why you’d want to spend your free time blowing birds to pieces after spending four years doing the same to Germans. 

“See?” Polly said to her brother. To him she continued, “What did you do in the war?”

“I was in the medical corps,” Thomas said. “First in France, then a hospital in Yorkshire.”

“That must have been tough,” Walter said. “I was just in the Ministry of Munitions. Spent most of the war touring plants and counting shells. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to join the fighting,” he added quickly. “The Army just thought I’d be most useful there.”

Polly leaned over Walter and explained confidentially, “It’s because Papa made his fortune in manufacturing. They thought Wally would know all about it; they didn’t know he’s a dunce and never listens to a word Papa says about business.”

Walter shoved her off of him and said to Thomas, “You’re lucky, not having any sisters. You see what one has to put up with.”

They livened up the afternoon, and for a change, Thomas did not have to conceal a sigh of relief when the mother of the party announced that it was time to make their farewells. 

“Mama,” said Polly, “please let’s invite Lord Ogilvy for luncheon and—I don’t know, croquet or something. He’s ever so much fun.”

“We’ll discuss it later, Polly,” Mrs. Cunningham said. “It does no good to issue an invitation when you haven’t even decided what you’re inviting the guest _for_.”

“Such vulgar people,” the Dowager Countess said when they had gone. “Did you notice how the son doesn’t know that one _shoots_ grouse rather than _hunts_ them? And the way they positively _push_ their acquaintance on one. Ordinarily, I’d say not to encourage them, but under the circumstances….”

#

“Are you riding today?” Findlater asked Thomas at breakfast. They were about a quarter of the way through visiting the farms and taking a day off from it. Findlater was looking forward to having most of the day in his laboratory. 

“Yes. McAllister thinks I’m ready to leave the paddock and take a turn around the bridle path. He’s taking one of the hunters out for exercise, so there’s someone to send for help if I fall off.”

“I could come, too,” Findlater suggested.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for an audience.”

“Oh, well then.” He was a little hurt that his own son thought of him as an audience, but he supposed that he’d missed his chance to lift him, beaming, onto his first pony, and there were some things you couldn’t get back. “Another time.”

“Yeah—yes. Another time.”

He also liked it when Thomas forgot to use the formal way of speaking he’d surely been taught to use with his betters, as a footman, and spoke to him as he would an equal—as he did, Findlater supposed, with his mother. But he couldn’t say that, either. Instead he said, “I’m sure it’s not the most interesting pastime for you, going around to all the farms, but it’s important for all the tenants to see you, so that they’ll know you as their lord when the time comes. I had to do it all on my own, after Papa died. It was…difficult.” Made even more so by the fact that Papa had died so soon after James. He’d had to receive each family’s condolences for both losses. “And it allows us to spend some time together, of course.”

“Yes, I understand—it’s no trouble. I mean, I enjoy it.”

Findlater was nearly certain he didn’t, but it was good of him to say so. “Any plans for the day? Apart from the riding?”

“Nothing in particular. Mother’s returning calls. I might go along to the Cunninghams’.”

“The Cunninghams? Oh, yes, the new family.” Not that new, really; their house had been built at least fifteen years ago, but that was the blink of an eye compared to the time the other houses in the neighborhood had stood. “There are young people in the house, aren’t there?”

“Mr. Walter and Miss Polly,” Thomas said. “Grandmamma does not entirely approve.”

Fortunately, being an invalid gave her every excuse not to visit them, no matter how often they received Sarah and Thomas, so it didn’t matter whether she approved or not. “It’ll be good for you to have friends in the neighborhood.” He saw no reason to look down his nose at a self-made man; all families were self-made if you went back far enough. 

After breakfast, Findlater had just laid out the things necessary to prepare a new batch of slides when Simpson stepped into the laboratory. “My lord, the Earl of Kinnoul has asked to speak with you. I’ve shown him to the library.”

“Oh, blast. These samples will have dried out before I get back to finish them.”

“Shall I tell him you’re not at home, my lord?”

“No, I’m sure he wouldn’t have come unless it was important.” Kinnoul and James had been great friends, but he and Kinnoul, though always cordial, had little to say to each other. Kinnoul wouldn’t have come just to chat. He washed his hands and slipped into the jacket Simpson held out for him. 

Kinnoul sat in the library drumming his fingers impatiently on the head of his walking stick. 

“Has Simpson offered you something to drink?” Findlater asked. 

“Yes—nothing, thank you. Findlater, I understand Lady Kinnoul and my daughters paid a call on the Dowager Countess and—ahem—Lady Findlater the other day.”

“I believe so,” Findlater said. Mama had, rather gloatingly, gone over the stack of cards left on the at-home day. Her manner towards Sarah was still decidedly cool, but Findlater took it as a good sign that Mama was inclined to take pride in her successes and resent those who had snubbed her, rather than the reverse. “Did someone forget a hat or glove or something? I’m sure Simpson could help you.”

“No, nothing like that.” Kinnoul smoothed his moustache. “This Lord Ogilvy. I’m afraid I’m not sure of the connection. Is he your stepson?”

He would hardly be going around calling himself Lord Ogilvy if he was, and Kinnoul surely knew it. “No, he’s my son,” Findlater said, as pleasantly as he could.

“And I understand that the recent marriage was your first.”

“That’s right. Lady Findlater and I were childhood sweethearts, you might say.” 

“Then the young man is….”

“ _Legitimatio per matrimonium subsequens_ , yes.” He said it straight out, in a tone that he hoped conveyed that he saw nothing in it for Thomas to be ashamed of. 

“I see. In that case, Findlater, I think it would be best if the call were not returned. I’m sure your bride is a perfectly charming person, but as a father of daughters, I must ensure that they do not become confused about what kind of conduct is appropriate. And I should not like for Lady Findlater to be embarrassed if she should pay a call and not be received.”

In other words, Findlater thought, if Sarah showed up at the Kinnouls’, the door would be slammed in her face. Kinnoul probably thought he deserved some credit for coming to say so instead of allowing it to happen, but Findlater was not inclined to give it to him. “I see.”

“Lady Kinnoul is most anxious that the Dowager Lady Findlater know that _she_ will be received, if her health should permit her to make calls.”

Lady Kinnoul was most anxious that they understand precisely who was being snubbed, and why, Findlater translated. “I’m surprised, given that her husband’s grandfather became heir in precisely the same way that the present Lord Ogilvy has.”

“That,” Kinnoul said, “is history sufficiently remote that I need not explain it to my daughters.” He hesitated. “Once they are married, and the boy is, it may be possible for our families to resume the former relationship.”

Now the real concern came out—that one of the Kinnoul daughters might end up marrying a bastard. “I doubt that very much,” he said, standing up and ringing for Simpson. “Good day, Kinnoul.”

#

O’Brien was in her dressing room, trying to decide which dress to wear for the day’s calls. Avery had made a selection, of course—a gray silk—but she didn’t entirely trust the Dowager’s lady’s maid to choose the correct thing. She was tempted to order her plum-colored one laid out instead—it would be like having a little bit of her ladyship with her for the ordeal. But that was sentimental foolishness. 

A knock at the door. “Sarah? May I come in?”

Tom. True to his word, he hadn’t bothered her in the private rooms set aside for her use. But there was hardly anything indecent in her receiving her own husband in her dressing room in the middle of the day. “Yes, come in.”

He entered. “Thomas said you were returning calls today.”

“Yes.” If she put it off any longer, they’d think she didn’t have any manners, and she’d be damned before she’d give them anything in her _present_ conduct to fault her for. 

“I’m glad I caught you before you left. I…” Tom hesitated. “You had better not go to the Kinnouls. I just found out, they called on you and Mama without knowing the…circumstances. The families have always been close, but they prefer not to receive us, just now.”

The sheer bloody cheek of them. She clenched her jaw. “I see. Thank you for telling me.”

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” he said. “But we knew not everyone would be…accepting.”

“Yes,” she said. They had known that; she didn’t need reminding, as if she were a child. She reached for the bell-pull and tugged it, hard. “I still have others to make; I’d best have Avery get started.”

“Yes, of course, I’ll leave you to it.” He left.

When Avery arrived, O’Brien ordered her to put away the gray silk and lay out the plum-colored one.

#

“That didn’t take long,” Thomas said as he joined O’Brien in the car. She’d decided to make the other calls first, and then come back to fetch him before going to the Cunninghams’. 

“Most of the ladies weren’t at home.” 

“Oh,” said Thomas. “They take your cards?” Not being “at home” wasn’t necessarily a snub, and leaving cards counted as returning the visit. If anybody wanted to be really insulting, they’d order the butler or footman who answered the door to refuse the cards. It was one of Thomas’s few regrets from his days as a footman that he’d never gotten to do it. 

“Yes. Except Lady Kinnoul. _She_ sent her husband round to tell me not to come.”

O’Brien sounded pretty bitter about it; Thomas wasn’t sure why. In her place, he’d have been glad not to have to bother. “We knew that kind of thing would happen.”

“That’s what he said.” 

Thomas knew she meant Father, and her tone suggested she was not at all pleased with his reaction. “Sorry. I meant to say, what a bloody bitch. Want me to go poison her lapdog?”

“Better wait at least a week, or they’ll know it was us,” O’Brien said, deadpan. 

Mrs. Cunningham, fortunately, received them. The house was so new it practically squeaked—the bricks all sharp-cornered and bright red—but Thomas supposed it was a nice enough place, if you didn’t have your own medieval hall. 

“Lady Findlater, I’m so pleased to see you. And Lord Ogilvy! May I offer you a cup of tea? Fletcher, tea for three please.”

“The Dowager Countess regrets that she can’t return the visit personally—her health, you know,” O’Brien said. 

“Of course, I understand,” Mrs. Cunningham said. “Have you begun to feel at home in the neighborhood?”

Walter and Polly came at about the same time as the tea, requiring Fletcher to go back downstairs for more cups. 

“Thomas, good to see you again! Pols and the mater still haven’t fixed up that invitation yet—it’s just that there’s so little to do around here,” he said regretfully, perching on the arm of the chair his sister was sitting in. 

“I shouldn’t say it, but Mama’s worried about making sure it’s grand enough for an earl’s son,” Polly confided. “I thought just a picnic or something, but she wants to invite some of the others from the neighborhood and make it a small garden party.” 

“I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, whatever it is,” Thomas said politely. Privately, he wondered if they’d have trouble finding guests, once it came out who the party was in honor of. 

“Anything’s better than sitting watching the grass grow, isn’t it?” Walter said. “But of course the ladies don’t see it that way.” He sighed heavily. “I say, do you want to walk down and see the new motor? It’s one of the first postwar models.”

“Mother may have other calls to make,” Thomas said. He knew she didn’t, but didn’t want to leave her trapped here with Mrs. Cunningham if she wanted to leave. 

But Mrs. Cunningham said that they were having such an engaging conversation, weren’t they, and O’Brien agreed, so Thomas trooped off to look at the motor. Any hope that Walter had something else in mind was dashed when Polly tagged along, and Walter failed completely to discourage her. 

The motor lived in a garage which was, if that was possible, even newer than the house. It looked pretty much like every other motor Thomas had ever seen, but he made the appropriate remarks as Walter pointed out its features. 

“Do you drive yourself?” he asked, when Walter seemed to have run out of things on the motor to describe.

“I wish I did. This exile would be much less tedious if I could motor in to Edinburgh whenever I wanted,” he sighed. “Do you?”

“Yes. I learnt in the war.”

“I should have done—I keep telling Mama and Papa, lots of gentlemen drive themselves, these days. But they’re sensitive about that sort of thing, Papa being self-made, and they’ve ordered the driver not to teach me.”

“There must be a way around that,” Thomas pointed out. Walter was a grown man; his parents couldn’t stop him driving if he wanted to. 

“Like what?”

“Get someone else to teach you. Do you have friends who have their own motors?”

“Some fellows I know from Oxford do, but nobody up here.”

“Pay a public garage mechanic to give you lessons, then. I’m sure you can find one in Perth.” 

“That might work,” Walter said. “How’ll I get there, though?”

God, did he have to think of everything? “Ride? Or tell the driver he’s taking you there for some other reason? Walk, if you have to.” 

“That’s a pretty good idea,” said Polly. “And Walter, after you learn, you can teach me.”

“I guess so,” Walter said. “After that, I’d still have to convince them to let me drive—or better yet, to buy me my own motor. My allowance doesn’t stretch that far.” 

“At that point, you tell her clinging to outdated manners is for parvenus,” Thomas said. He’d heard Lady Mary say that once, back when she’d been trying to put the wind up Matthew Crawley.

As they walked up to the house, Walter said, “Say, do you play billiards? We could have a game. I’m sure your mater and mine have run out of things to say to each other, but our driver can run you home, after.”

Billiards before tea was vulgar, but Thomas reminded himself of what he’d just said about parvenus. And that was one thing he did already know how to do. “All right—I have to be back by four; Grandmamma likes me to take tea with her.”

“That’s nice of you,” said Polly. “She’s an invalid, isn’t she?”

“Yes—brightens up her day, you know.”

Actually, Thomas had found that he didn’t mind taking tea with the Dowager Countess. She was a bigger snob than even Carson, but she had evidently made up her mind that their shared blood and the marriage certificate made Thomas the real thing, and he was exempt from her razor tongue. 

“The Cunninghams?” she said that afternoon, when she heard where he’d spent the day. “I’ve been to the house. Just once, you know. Out of curiosity. So new one expects to see the workmen’s hammers lying about.”

“I don’t imagine you saw the billiard room,” Thomas said, accepting a cup of tea that she poured with a shaky hand on the bed-tray over her lap. “Trophy heads on all the walls—red deer and some kind of sheep. I think they must have _bought_ them, don’t you?”

“I can’t imagine how else they would have acquired them,” she agreed. “Here, have one of the sandwiches—I told Mrs. Wallace to have Cook make your favorite.”

He took one. Minced chicken. “The luncheon-and-croquet-or-something is well on its way to turning into a garden party,” he added. 

“Hmph!” the Dowager said, pressing another sandwich on him. “We can’t let them do that.”

“We can’t?” Thomas wasn’t sure why not. 

“No doubt they want to give the impression they’re the ones introducing you to the neighborhood. While I am no longer able to entertain on the appropriate scale, that privilege rightly belongs to my _intimate_ friends, not a family of Johnny-come-latelies.” 

“I can’t really send regrets, though,” he pointed out. So far, the Cunninghams were the only ones who seemed really eager to pursue an acquaintance with him. 

“No, not when most of the neighborhood has come to tolerate them,” the Dowager agreed. “Fortunately, since your mother has at last returned her calls, my closest friends are free to invite you. I’ll just have to write and suggest they do it quickly, so as to get in ahead of the Cunninghams.”

And she did. The invitations started arriving the next day. Mostly tea, with some lawn tennis and croquet thrown in. No one suggested riding, which at first Thomas thought must be because the Dowager had put the word out that he wasn’t up to much in that line, but when the parties started, he realized it was because all of his hostesses were ancient. Nearly all made an effort to invite “one or two of the young people,” but since, to them, this description fitted anyone between the ages of approximately fifteen and forty-five, he didn’t really see himself becoming close chums with many of them. 

Another way the parties were all alike was that no one quizzed him on his relations, his education, or his profession, if any. He detected the old lady’s hand in that; he knew from serving at similar parties that those three subjects were just about the only things ladies making the acquaintance of an unmarried gentleman were interested in finding out about. They might ask other questions as camouflage, but it was those three details that determined the man’s value in the marriage market. The right answers—the ones that meant he might be introduced to one’s daughters, nieces, or granddaughters—were, respectively, people one knows; Eton, Harrow, Rugby, or Winchester, followed by Oxford or Cambridge; and none. If the answer was anything else, he might do for a _friend’s_ daughter, niece, or granddaughter. 

That no one asked those questions of him meant that they all knew that his answers were as wrong as they could possibly be. The only part of his past that anyone asked about was the war. More often, they asked how he was settling in at Hightower, how he liked the neighborhood, and whether he had met any of the local young people yet. 

By the time he’d had a dozen conversations like that, he was thoroughly bored with his rehearsed answers, and he welcomed the opportunity to change things up when one of the “young people”—a boy of about sixteen visiting his grandmother during his summer hols, or long vac, or whatever they called it, said offhandedly that he supposed Eton wasn’t too bad, “If you have to go somewhere. Where did you go?”

“Peter!” his grandmother said. “That’s not a polite question.”

“What?” the boy said, clearly confused since he knew perfectly well it was a completely ordinary thing to ask.

“Sheffield Grammar,” Thomas told him. 

Peter mouthed the words, then asked, “Where’s that?”

“In Sheffield.” When Peter still looked confused, he added, “It’s a city. In England.”

Peter’s grandmother broke in with a long and pointless story about some people she knew who had once been to Sheffield. Thomas seriously considered pointing out that they’d definitely never have met anyone he knew, unless maybe they decided to buy a clock while they were there, but in the end held his tongue until someone got around to asking him what he’d done in the war. 

#

Between one thing and another—mostly the tenant farm visits and Thomas’s ever-increasing round of social engagements—it was the first week of August before Findlater was able to go riding with his son. They walked down to the stables together on a misty morning. 

“I only just saw Mama’s guest list for the shooting party,” he mentioned as they walked. 

“Oh?”

“I noticed she’d rather loaded it up with Jimmy’s old friends. My nephew, that is, not James my brother. Chaps he was at University with, and their wives and sisters.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “She said something about that. I suppose that’s who she knows that’s about the right age.”

“Indeed.” He hesitated. “It’s a bit late, but I wondered if there was anyone you wanted to add. People you know, I mean.” Thomas glanced over at him sharply, and Findlater wondered if he thought Findlater might mean he’d want to invite servants or something. Well, if he did, Findlater wouldn’t say no—Huntingtower was Thomas’s home now too, so he should be free to invite anyone he liked—but that wasn’t what he’d had in mind. “From among the new friends you’ve made in the neighborhood, perhaps.”

“Oh. Well. Walter and Polly, I suppose,” Thomas said off-handedly. “I know Grandmamma doesn’t think they’re quite the thing, but they’ve been very welcoming.”

Findlater had thought he might say that—he seemed to have become particular friends with the two younger Cunninghams. Thomas was at their house, or they at Huntingtower, a couple of times a week. 

“Of course. You can say something to Walter, but I’ll ask Mama to write to Miss Cunningham. I’m not sure that there are suitable rooms available in the New House.” In fact, he knew for a certainty that there weren’t—Mama had said so, when he’d pointed out that it might be more comfortable for Thomas to have a familiar face or two among those he was expected to play host to. “But we can find something for Miss Cunningham—one can always ask two girls to double up—and Mr. Walter can choose whether he’d prefer to camp out in the West Tower or to sleep in his own bed and come over each day.”

“All right—I’m going motoring with Walter tomorrow; I’ll ask him then.” 

In the stables, Findlater paused in front of the loose box that housed Firebrand, James’s favorite hunter in the old days, and the only one he’d held back from the summons to empty Britain’s stables to equip the new cavalry regiments. McAllister was the only one who rode him now.

Saddled and waiting for them were two much plainer animals, the bay Chaser and the gray Irish. McAllister helped him clamber aboard Chaser—getting his bad leg over the saddle was always a trial, though once he was there he was fine—and then held Irish while Thomas mounted, rather more gracefully. “Keep your heels down, my lord,” McAllister told Thomas. “And you’ll stay on, whatever happens.”

Findlater smiled. As they rode out, side by side, he confided, “With me, it was always ‘Chin up and shoulders back, my lord—if you look at the ground, you’ll end up there!’”

“That one, he didn’t have to tell me twice,” Thomas said. “One thing being a former footman’s good for, I suppose.”

Findlater had decided to take Thomas along a path that paralleled the walk he’d most often taken with Sarah, all those years ago. He pointed out sights of interest, including the naturally dammed-up bit of stream where they’d first spoken, the (now-long-abandoned) burrow where they’d watched a pair of fox kits at play, and a specimen of _taxus baccata_ believed to have been standing since before the Conqueror. 

“What’s that funny-looking hill?” Thomas asked at one point.

“Oh,” Findlater said, noticing it. He’d forgotten it was out this way, ancient peoples not being a particular interest of his. “We should go and look at that. It’s what’s left of an old hill fort, from the Iron Age. The approach is…let’s see, I think it’s this way.” They rode through a small dip in the ground. “This would have been part of the defensive fortifications,” he said as they did. “Almost a trench, you might say, but they used it to slow down an approaching enemy, instead of standing in it.”

“Clever of them,” Thomas said. 

Findlater nodded. “It would have been deeper and steeper in those days—erosion has smoothed it out some. That’s what Grandpapa said, at least. He was interested in all this ancient history stuff. It goes all the way around the hill—they might have had some kind of bridge over it, but any sign of it is long gone. At some similar forts, you can see remains of a stone wall, after the defensive ditch, but ours hasn’t got any. They might have put sharpened sticks or something along the edges instead.”

“Like barbed wire,” Thomas said. 

“Yes, exactly. There we are—this is the right place. Do you see the gap?” He took the reins in one hand and pointed. 

Thomas looked. “Yes. What did they do, dig down into the top of the hill, like they making a gravy well in mashed potatoes?”

“The experts think the opposite—they built up an earthwork wall around the natural top of the mountain.”

“I suppose that makes a bit more sense,” Thomas said. “They could have dug out the trench down here and hauled the dirt up there.”

“I hadn’t thought of it before, but I’m sure you’re right. Shall we ride up? You can get a better idea of how it worked from up top.”

Thomas assented, and they rode up. Once they passed through the gap, they were surrounded by a shallow bowl of earth, about twice a man’s height from the lowest point to the top of the wall. 

“This is a fairly small one, as hill forts go,” Findlater said. “The women and children would have sheltered down here in the middle, and the fighting men ranged up around the top.” 

“Right where the snipers could pick them off,” Thomas said. “I know there weren’t any,” he added quickly. 

“Yes—just men charging up, on horseback or on foot, with swords and lances and clubs. I don’t think they’d have had bows, even, but I’m not sure.” Grandpapa would have known. He saw a small path leading up to the top of the ramparts, probably a track left by deer or feral sheep, and guided his Chaser up it, with Irish falling in behind. When they were once again side-by-side at the top, he continued. “The defenders would have had gravity on their side, but the attackers had momentum. A running horse, or even a running man, can put more force behind a blow than one standing still to defend.”

“Imagine if our men up top had had machine guns.” Thomas looked thoughtful. “I think I’m starting to understand what the generals and everyone _thought_ was going to happen when they had the Poor Bloody Infantry charge across No Man’s Land. Never made the slightest bit of sense to me.”

“Yes,” Findlater said. “That’s exactly what they thought. Never mind that it doesn’t make any appreciable difference to the speed and force of a bullet or an artillery shell if you fire it standing still or advancing. Back in these days—” he gestured at their surroundings “—it would have been very intimidating to the defenders to see the enemy running straight at them. I suppose it might still be, the very first time you see it—until you started seeing them mowed down by the guns. But the men making the battle plans never saw that part of it.” 

They sat atop their horses and looked out over the ancient battlefield, and Findlater knew that they were both seeing a different, newer, and bloodier one. “As a student of natural history, one can understand it,” Findlater said. “I’m sure you’ve seen how moths flock around a lantern or candle-flame.”

“Yeah, course I have.”

“They evolved, over even millions of years, in an environment where there was only one bright light source—the moon. Natural selection favored the ones who knew, in some instinctive animal way, that flying toward a bright light would keep them going in a straight line. Even though humankind has had mastery of fire for tens of thousands of their generations, it hasn’t been long enough for selection to overcome the ancient prejudice—even though it sends untold numbers of moths to fiery deaths. And man has understanding, but underneath it all, he’s still an animal. He’s likely been using this type of warfare since he came down out of the trees and walked upright—this fort’s only about three thousand years old, but others are older. For all that time, natural selection has favored the bold attacker, the man who charges at his enemy. And so the ancient prejudice sent untold numbers to their deaths.” 

Thomas considered. “So it happened because the top brass are all as dumb as moths?”

“Something like that.” 

#

A few days later, Thomas found himself out on the grounds with Father and the gamekeeper, getting the long-promised shooting lesson. The gamekeeper, Gordon, had acquired a machine for hurling clay pigeons into the air, and after a short practice with stationary targets, they moved on to those. 

“Well,” Father said when Gordon paused in operating the machine to retrieve the unbroken pigeons. “With eight guns in the field, it’ll be fairly difficult for anyone to notice exactly who has shot what.” 

Thomas knew that he should have come out on his own, with just the gamekeeper, and not let Father see until he’d made some progress, like with the riding. “I can do it,” he insisted. “I just need to practice a little more.” 

But the next round of shooting didn’t go much better. 

“The knack of it, if you don’t mind my saying my lord,” Gordon said, “is to aim for where the bird’s _going_ to be, not where it _is_.”

“I know,” Thomas said, even though he hadn’t quite thought of it that way before. “Set it up again.”

“I’ve always found,” Father said afterwards, “that if one shoots as quickly as possible at the very beginning of each drive, one stands a fair chance of hitting something based on pure mathematics. More birds in the air, you know.”

Thomas had to admit that there was something to what Father was saying. This was not as easy as it looked, and if he was going to make a decent showing, it only made sense to take advantage of the percentages. 

“You’ll have to decide if you want a loader, too,” Father continued. Thomas had seen enough shooting parties to know that some of the gentlemen brought one shotgun and loaded it themselves between shots; others brought two and had a man load one while they shot the other. “I’ve always done without one—you don’t have to shoot quite so often that way. But of course, the more often you shoot, the better your odds of hitting something. At some point. Mathematics, again.”

“Which should I do, then?” Thomas asked, after trying and failing to figure out which procedure Father was recommending.

“Well, it all depends on whether you want to shoot as many birds as possible or not.”

Since shooting birds was the entire point of the exercise, that meant he should have a loader, Thomas decided.

“It’s usually the frightfully keen chaps who use a loader, though.”

So maybe having one, when he was obviously not “frightfully keen” would expose him to ridicule as a pretender. 

“Then again, the real crack shots use only one gun, and concentrate on making the most difficult shots.”

That was absolutely no help at all. “I won’t be doing that. Obviously.”

“I suppose not. Well, I’ll be using just one gun. You can do what you like, of course, but there’s something to be said for letting the guests bag most of the birds.”

“I’ll follow your example, then,” Thomas decided. It was most important that Findlater think he was doing the right thing; what the rest of the party made of him was secondary. 

“Very good,” Father said, which reassured Thomas that he’d chosen the right answer. “I think that’s enough practice for one day. You might arrange with Gordon to come out again sometime before the twelfth.”

“I will,” Thomas said quickly. “If Gordon can spare the time, that is. I expect the run-up to a shooting party is a busy time for a gamekeeper.” ‘Humble and grateful’ had largely fallen by the wayside since his legitimation, but Thomas thought that the occasional demonstration that he remembered where he had come from, in the form of remembering the servants’ feelings, gave a fitting impression. 

#

Findlater couldn’t help wishing that Mama had chosen almost anything other than a shooting party for what he couldn’t help thinking of as Thomas’s debut. He’d never liked shooting much, and since the war, he liked it even less. And inviting so many of Jimmy’s friends seemed…pointed. As though she was thinking of Thomas a replacement for Jimmy.

Which, he supposed, she was. But Jimmy’s set were not likely to be as sympathetic to her motivations in doing so as Findlater himself was. It rather gave the impression she was attempting to carry on as though nothing had happened, which, to an outside eye, might make her seem pathetic, and Thomas ridiculous. 

Particularly given that Thomas, despite his best efforts, simply couldn’t shoot. Findlater quite admired what a good sport he was being about trying, not just with that, but with all of Mama’s efforts to shove him into the mold of an aristocrat. He was just so very earnest about it all, and Findlater was troubled by the thought that some of the guests might find it…amusing. 

But there was no stopping the thing, not since Mama had sent out the invitations even before the wedding. The only thing for it was to prepare as well as they could, and hope for the best. At least Thomas’s particular friends, Walter and Polly Cunningham, were coming. Findlater had also invited Neville Ley, one of his own oldest friends, who had met Thomas in London and liked him. He knew the whole story, and could help keep an eye on things, in a way that would be less obtrusive than a father doing it. 

“Is Thomas ready for the rest of the week?” he asked Sarah, when they found themselves alone at the luncheon table the day before the shooting party were due to arrive.

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Sarah asked sharply.

“No reason,” Findlater said. She was not as easy to talk to as the girl he remembered—naturally, the privations of her life would have hardened her. “We haven’t entertained in this style for quite some time.”

“We’ve taken on some extra help for the duration—farm girls, so they’re accustomed to hard work, at least, as long as they remember they’re here to work and not to have a holiday.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Wallace will manage them,” Findlater said. 

“One can’t leave everything to servants.”

“I suppose not,” Findlater said. He was leaving all the outside arrangements—hiring beaters and loaders and so on—to Gordon. But ladies did judge other ladies by their servants. 

“And of course the Dowager Lady Findlater is no help at all.”

“Husbanding her strength for when the guests are here, I’m sure.” 

Sarah smiled tightly.

All in all, Mama seemed to be the only one who was looking forward to the party with genuine pleasure. When Findlater went up to her room at tea—a little late; he’d gotten absorbed in an experiment he wanted to have finished in time to show Ley—he found her quizzing Thomas on the biographies of the young people who were coming. 

“Lady Laura is the sister of Lord Eustace, surname Fielding, who was at Eton with Jimmy, and daughter of the Earl of Winross,” Thomas said. “You sponsored their mother’s presentation at court. She’s fond of tennis and dogs. She had an understanding with—I’ve forgotten his name. He was killed in the Argonne.”

“Cedric Walling, but you needn’t mention him; it would only reopen the wound,” Mama said. “Tom, so good of you to join us.”

“Yes, sorry—I lost track of the time.”

She sniffed. “Anyone would think you didn’t care whether Thomas makes a success this week or not.”

“I hope you don’t think that,” he said to Thomas as he accepted a cup of tea from Mama.

“Of course not.”

“It isn’t as if he’s going to be sitting an examination the moment the party arrives,” Findlater pointed out. 

“I don’t mind,” Thomas said. “It’ll be easier to follow conversations if I know who everyone is, and how they’re connected to each other.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he admitted. Still, the guests were all going to know Thomas was a stranger to them. 

“Anyway, it’s quite nostalgic,” Thomas added. “I remember Mr. Carson doing nearly the same thing when was first at Downton and we’d have a house party staying. You needed to know how to address everyone, and who’s the most important, and their habits and so on.”

“You’ll have precedence in this party,” Mama put in. “After your father, of course. Lord Eustace is only the younger son of an earl.”

“I noticed,” Thomas said. He listed the order of precedence in the party—apparently correctly, going by Mama’s reaction. Findlater certainly couldn’t have done it, at least not without sitting down with a scrap of paper and a copy of Debrett’s to work it all out. 

Mama smiled in approval. “I think on the first night, I’ll have Dr. Ley take me in. That way you can take in your bride,” she said to Findlater, “and Lady Laura will have Thomas.”

Thomas agreed to the plan, and Mama continued, “After the first evening, everyone will know each other, so we can follow the modern custom and allow each to choose his own dinner partner. It doesn’t do to be too formal at a house party.”

“I quite agree,” Thomas said. 

“Be careful not to be too particular in your attentions to the Cunningham girl,” Mama added. “I’m sure she’s a charming person, but with a little effort you may be able to do better, and there’s no hurry. We’ll keep her in reserve, so to speak.”

“She has her cap set for Gerald Kinnoul, anyway,” Thomas said. 

“My! Our little sparrow does hope to fly high.”

He nodded. “I don’t know that that’s going to work out. She arranged for us to run into him on one of our motoring trips, and he didn’t seem that keen.”

“All the better for keeping her in reserve, then.”

“Mama,” Findlater broke in. “Thomas should choose someone he likes.”

“He likes the Cunningham girl,” she said. “And I’m sure he’ll like Laura Fielding, when he’s met her.  
Or Mary, or Cecelia.” 

“As you said, there’s no hurry,” Findlater said. 

Mama continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Things would be much easier if we could arrange to have him presented, to the Prince at least, but I simply don’t see how it can be managed, even in these lax times. And to put his name forward only to be refused would be a humiliation to us all.”

“Er, yes, rather,” Findlater said. He was a little horrified that Mama would even think of it.

“All in all, not asking puts forth the best impression—it shows we understand the delicacy of the situation.”

That was the first sign Mama had given that she actually _did_ understand the delicacy of the situation. 

“I wouldn’t want to be presented anyway,” Thomas said. “You have to dress up like a footman.”

He and Mama looked at each other for a moment; then they both laughed.

#

Thomas was behind the old potting shed that had been Father’s laboratory when he was a boy, smoking and, frankly, hiding from his guests. Walter and Polly were the only ones invited that he even knew, and they weren’t coming until just before dinner. He’d decided to stay in his room until then, but the Dowager Countess had made Simpson roust him out of there, so he’d had to seek out a more remote hiding place. 

“Barrow? Bloody hell, I thought you must have been killed in the war.”

Thomas looked up to see Christopher Mailer, a valet he’d gotten to know a bit during Lady Sybil’s London season. “Hullo,” he said. “No. Wounded on the Somme and spent the second half of the war on Home Service.”

“Jammy bastard. Is Lord Grantham here? I didn’t think he went with this set.” Mailer leaned up against the shed wall and lit a cigarette. 

“No, I—have a different job now.” He didn’t know why he didn’t tell the truth—Mailer was bound to find out sooner or later. Maybe he missed talking to someone who had been a sort of friend, as if he was still the person he used to be. 

“Yeah? Who?”

“Lord Ogilvy.” 

“Huh.” Mailer looked him up and down. “They say he’s not quite a gentleman, but he’s got a good tailor, I’ll give him that. Must be about your size, too—that suit hardly looks like it was altered at all.”

“Yeah, just about exactly my size,” Thomas said. 

“Well, I’ll know who to come to if I find out I forgot anything when I was packing for Lord Guilford.”

“Sure.”

“Say,” Mailer said, too casually to really be casual. “Maybe we can get together later. If you’re still doing that.”

“Maybe.” Except that Mailer was bound to figure things out pretty soon. “What about now?” He hooked his thumb toward the shed. 

“You’re joking—I have to get in and unpack in a minute or two. You may be quick, but you’re not that quick.”

“Right, what was I thinking?”

“Anyway, who needs a shed? We’ll practically have the house to ourselves while that lot’s out messing about with guns. Big advantage of these country weekends.”

Except that Thomas was going to be out there messing about with guns with that lot. “You’re right, that does sound better.” He wasn’t lying; just at this moment, he’d have rather been here as a valet, and been able to have some fun with Mailer during the shooting instead of participating in it. 

“I’ll find a bedroom no one’s using, and you nick us a bottle of something, all right? Be like old times.”

“Yeah.” 

Mailer flicked his fag-end away and thumped Thomas on the shoulder. “Good seeing you, Barrow.”

“You, too.” 

After smoking a second cigarette, Thomas went inside. The party would be gathering in the drawing room soon, and he knew O’Brien would have his hide if he left her to face it on her own. Still, he took his time about it, and, on impulse, side-tracked into the dining room on his way in.

Simpson-the-butler was there, checking the place settings with a ruler. For a second, he looked like Carson—even though their only similarities were that they were both male, and butlers—and Thomas was punched in the gut by something he belatedly recognized as homesickness. 

“Is there something I can do for you, my lord?” Simpson asked. 

“No. Just—checking on things. Old habits die hard.”

“I hope you find everything satisfactory.”

He looked at the table with a professional eye. “We’re only having two wines?”

“I’m sorry to tell you we weren’t precisely sure where the glasses for the pudding wine had got to, my lord. We only found them an hour ago; they’re being washed now.”

“Very good, then. Couldn’t have done it better myself,” he said with a small, private smile. 

“It’s good of you to say, my lord.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then, and see about my own duties,” Thomas said, and made for the drawing room.

#

“—and so, on the eve of the Glorious Twelfth, I give you our own glorious twelfth-earl-to-be, Lord Thomas Ogilvy,” Mama concluded. 

Jimmy’s old friends demonstrated their overall soundness as a group by responding to this bit of treacle with a polite collective, “Hear, hear.” Thomas, for his part, managed not to look _quite_ as if he wished to die and be swallowed up by the Earth. 

“Now you may serve the pudding, Simpson,” Mama said. That gave everyone an excuse to let out the chuckles they had doubtless been holding in during the speech. Findlater saw Laura Fielding lean over and whisper something to Thomas, who nodded ruefully.

So far—Mama’s speech aside—the evening was going as well as anyone could have hoped. The young people were a little more stiff in their manners than Findlater remembered them being the last time Jimmy had played host to a similar party, just before the war. But they were all a bit older now, and had no doubt been sobered by their experiences, as well as by the reminder that their old friend was lost to them. He rather thought that Jimmy’s old set must have been broken up by the war—from fragments of conversations he caught, it sounded like many of them hadn’t seen each other for years. Catching up provided them with a great deal to talk about, and the fact that they were no longer quite as close as they once had been made it easier for Thomas, Walter, and Polly to be included. Maybe Mama hadn’t chosen the guest list quite as badly as he had thought. 

When the ladies went out after the pudding, the men re-shuffled themselves to cluster around one end of the table. As port and cigars were passed round, Guilford said, “It’s an awful shame about Jimmy. And his father. And Bertie. And old Lord Findlater, for that matter.”

Sir Basil swore under his breath. “Sorry—I hadn’t realized quite how many, till I heard them all at once like that.”

“We were hit very hard,” Findlater agreed. Father had been natural causes—and, in a blackly ironic stroke of good luck among the bad, had been the last of the four to die, meaning they only had to pay the death duties on the estate once. In that terrible way, they were almost fortunate, although it would hardly have mattered if he hadn’t had anyone to pass the intact estate on to. 

“I was here, you know, when the war was declared,” Guilford said. “I remember sitting right here, talking about how we’d all go sign up. Bertie was only seventeen—we all teased him that he’d miss it, it would be over before he was old enough to join.”

“I remember,” Findlater said. The young men had all been excited about joining up, as though it was going to be a big adventure. He and James had been a little more cautious—but even they hadn’t been prepared for what it was really like. “I’d forgotten who else was here, apart from the family, but I remember about Bertie.” His younger nephew had been pleased to be counted among the men for the party, and was indignant about the teasing. “Jimmy promised to save him a Hun.”

“Who else was it?” Guilford wondered aloud. “Freddy Atholl?”

“No, he was at our place,” said Fielding. “Dennis, maybe?”

“That’s right,” Guilford said. “He made it through, but he’s only got one leg now, the poor bas—” Guilford caught himself, and substituted, “blighter. It was him, and me, Jimmy, and Courtenay—Edward, I mean. I don’t think you were here, Jack, or we’d have been teasing you, too.”

“No, I was at home,” Courtenay said. 

“Oh,” Thomas said. 

Findlater glanced over at him. 

“You’re Edward’s brother. I didn’t realize. I…” Thomas hesitated. “Knew him in the war. If it’s the same Edward. Hospital in Yorkshire?”

“Yes,” Courtenay said. 

“That was a damn shame, too,” Guilford said. 

“It was,” Thomas said. “I liked him.”

“Was it at the hospital that you knew him?” Courtenay asked.

“Yes. I was stationed there.”

“Maybe we could talk later,” Courtenay suggested. “It was never really clear—we had a letter saying he was stable and recovering, then….well.”

“That’s pretty much what happened,” Thomas said. “He seemed to be getting better, then he…had a setback. But yes—we can talk about it later.”

“The shooting’s always been particularly good here,” Fielding said. Some of the others looked askance at him for the change of subject, but Findlater supposed he was only trying to lighten the mood—the current subject was hardly festive. “I remember one year we bagged almost a thousand head with only six guns.”

“Yes,” said Guilford. “It’s always a privilege to be asked to shoot at Huntingtower.” He shared a fond reminiscence of an earlier house party here, and several of the others did the same. 

“The shooting’s one thing that ought to be up to the prewar standard,” Fielding commented. Was there something pointed in the way he looked at Thomas when he said that? Findlater hoped not. 

“The stable’s not what it was before the war,” Thomas said, in a tone of agreement. “From what I hear, that is.”

“No one’s is,” said Guilford. 

“But yes, the shooting should be particularly fine,” Dr. Ley said. “Unless six years of unchecked growth have precipitated a population crisis.” 

“It hasn’t,” Findlater said. “The number of fields left uncultivated appears to have sufficiently increased the amount of forage and nesting places. The gamekeeper’s predicting a very successful three days.”

#

“I thought I might find you around here somewhere,” Thomas said. After the guests had gone up, he’d decided to have a wander around the East Tower, where most of the visiting valets were put up, in hopes that he might bump into Mailer again. Ideally, before he’d completely figured out the situation.

He’d found Mailer, but not in time. “Lord Ogilvy,” he said. “I’m sorry. I hope you know I didn’t mean to be impertinent, earlier.”

“If I minded, I would have said,” Thomas answered. He offered Mailer a cigarette from his case; after a moment’s hesitation, Mailer took one. “It’s not like anything like this happens often enough that you’d know to look out for it.” 

“I suppose not,” Mailer said. 

Encouraged, Thomas went on, “So I suppose you’ve figured out I’m going to be busy playing Lord Ogilvy tomorrow.”

Mailer nodded.

“But we could go up to my room now—I don’t have to share it; that’s one advantage of the whole thing. If you aren’t busy.”

“I don’t think that would be appropriate, my lord,” Mailer said. 

It wasn’t like it had been _appropriate_ before. “Fine,” Thomas said, stung. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“That might be best.”

#

True to Gordon’s word, the morning’s shooting was very good, the bag numbering into the hundreds. Findlater was sure that he and Thomas had, together, accounted for only a handful, but the guests seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Or so he thought, until Guilford buttonholed him on the way in to luncheon. “Findlater,” he said. “Would you mind terribly if I played the drawing-room pet for the afternoon? It’s…well, my nerves got pretty bad, during the war, and the thunder of the guns is bringing it all back a bit.”

“Of course,” he said. “You should do what you like.” There was another reason a shooting party hadn’t been the best thing. “I wonder if we should try to arrange some other type of amusement, beyond what the ladies have planned, in case some of the men would rather not shoot.” He wasn’t entirely sure what—the stable didn’t have nearly enough horses for everyone, so riding was out—but surely they could think of something.

“I think the others are all right,” Guilford said. “I may have been the only one of us in the thick of it—and yourself and Lord Ogilvy, that is. Courtenay wasn’t out of training until it was almost over, Fielding was aide to somebody in the General Staff, and Bloggs did something to do with propaganda.”

“Oh, all right then.” Thomas seemed all right, but Findlater thought he ought to find an opportunity to speak to him privately. “You can ride, if you like—the stable isn’t much, as Thomas said, but James’s old Firebrand is still there, and a couple of others.”

“I might do that,” Guilford said. “Listen—I thought I’d tell the others I’d got a headache. I just—I didn’t want you to think I was sneaking off or anything.” He smiled thinly. “And I’m hoping to be able to join in again tomorrow. I’ve always liked shooting—I hope it isn’t spoiled for me forever.”

#

By the end of the first day’s shooting, Thomas was certain he liked working at house parties better than he liked hosting one. To begin with, since Mailer was being a prig about things, and none of the guests seemed inclined that way, he was clearly going to have to do without what was the usual house party preoccupation for masters and servants alike—unless he wanted to try for one of the ladies, which he did not. 

For another thing, when you were a footman, you didn’t have to be nice to visiting servants you didn’t like—if one of them went around making snidely insinuating comments all the time, for instance, you could back him into a corner where no family, guests, or butlers were watching and sort the thing out properly. But with these guests, he had to smile and be polite, just as if he’d still been a footman—except if he was still a footman, he’d have been too far beneath their notice to bother insulting, which, right now, he thought would have been just fine with him. 

On top of that, it was chilly and damp when they started out in the morning, muggy and close after lunch. And the constant shooting during each drive reminded him all too uncomfortably of a bombardment—he kept wanting to fling himself behind the nearest bit of cover, and wouldn’t they all have a laugh about that if he did? The only part he liked was when he managed to shoot a grouse, and that didn’t happen very often. 

When Gordon suggested that they were running a bit late, and they might want to save the next drive for tomorrow, Thomas agreed immediately—only to have Fielding say, “Surely there’s time for one more drive, isn’t there, chaps?”

Father looked back and forth between them. “Well, some of us could start back, and those who are keen could stay for the last drive,” he suggested. 

The plan was agreed to, and in the end, only Dr. Ley started back with him. Thomas had a feeling Father had put him up to it. At the moment, he didn’t care. At the house, he made straight for his room, after telling Dr. Ley that his boots were giving him a blister and he wanted to change them—not a lie, but he planned to take as long about it as he possibly could. Maybe he’d change for dinner while he was up here; then he’d have more time to himself, while the others were changing. 

As he crossed the funny little staircase from the West Tower to the New House, he heard someone saying, “—advertising the place, but I don’t know who would take it.” 

Another voice answered, “It’d be light work, but. And there aren’t as many places for valets as before the war.”

“Sure, but dressing a bloody _footman_? I’d sooner starve in a ditch.”

Thomas took the last stair, coming into sight of the two men, both visiting valets, who were loitering in the corridor. 

Both men’s spines straightened as if they were marionettes whose strings had been pulled. “My lord,” said the one who thought valeting him would be light work. 

“You know,” Thomas said slowly, “if I _was_ still a footman, I’d have to tell the butler what I’d just heard, so he could let your employers know you’ve nothing better to do with your time than gossip about your betters.”

“And whose ‘better’ do you think _you_ are?” muttered the one who would rather starve in a ditch. 

Thomas looked him up and down, taking in his off-center creases and his water-spotted shoes. “I was a better footman than you are a valet, I can tell you that much. You _would_ starve in a ditch if you ever came to me for a job, because I certainly wouldn’t have you.” He brushed past the two men, then paused with his hand on the doorknob to his room. “I’d be getting back to my work, if I was you.”

Somehow, he now felt just a bit better about things.

#

Thomas slipped into her dressing room, lit two cigarettes, and handed her one. “I hope your day hasn’t been as wretched as mine has been.”

“You think _yours_ was wretched?” O’Brien asked. “I was shut up in a drawing room with the old lady and six brainless girls all day.”

“At least you could sit down and were indoors,” Thomas said, and whinged for a good five minutes about his feet hurt, the guns were loud, and none of the other boys liked him. “Courtenay might be all right,” he added. “But I have to avoid him until I’ve figured out whether to tell him his brother killed himself or not.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “The last thing you need is to be associated with another scandal. And it doesn’t really matter what the men think of you. I’m meant to be trying to sort out which of those girls you could marry.”

“I’d rather not marry any of them.”

“If you’re going to be an earl, you’ll need to have an heir,” she said sharply. “So you’ll just have to lie back and think of Scotland.”

They went down to dinner. O’Brien had never entirely understood why ladies made so much of when the men came in from the day’s sport, or when they came into the drawing room after their port and cigars. Her ladyship had said something, once, about how it was nice to see a few different faces than the ones one had been looking at all day. She’d thought that well, when you were a servant, you saw the same faces all day and you didn’t complain about it. But it was different. At least when you were a servant, you could keep busy. There was none of this sitting around and waiting for something to happen, which never did. 

The Dowager had decided—quite without consulting O’Brien —that everyone would choose their own dinner partners that evening. Thomas took in Polly, which she would _not_ have recommended. O’Brien expected to end up with Tom again, but to her surprise, Lord Guilford asked to take her in. He’d missed the afternoon’s shooting with what he claimed was a sick headache, but she’d assumed was a calculated snub aimed at Thomas. Perhaps she’d been wrong, or— more likely—he wanted to be able to make a mocking report later on her manners and conversation. 

If he was, he was very good at talking out of one side of his mouth—he came across as perfectly polite to her, thanking her for having them and praising the shooting and the hospitality generally. “I’m afraid we’ve all been treating this more as an opportunity to remember Jimmy than to come to know the new Lord Ogilvy,” he said at one point. “We’ll have to try to do better—he seems a perfectly decent sort of chap.”

And was there any reason why he shouldn’t be? O’Brien smiled and said only that she hoped Jimmy’s old friends would continue to find a welcome here. 

“The place was practically a second home to me when we were both at school,” he agreed. “It’s nice to see it again—I was remembering to your husband last night after dinner, how we were all here when the war was declared—but there I go talking about the old days again. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“Of course,” she said. 

After dinner, when the ladies went into the drawing room, the Dowager announced she was retiring. “But you young people should stay up as long as you like. I’m sure Lady Findlater won’t mind acting as hostess in my absence.”

“Certainly,” O’Brien said. She ought to have been acting as hostess all along—she _was_ lady of the house. But the old lady guarded her privileges jealously. And, despite all her claims of invalidism, she was well enough when she chose to be, Sarah had noticed. 

The gentlemen didn’t stay in the dining room long, but if anything had gone wrong, Thomas gave no sign of it. “Where’s Grandmamma?” he asked when they came in. 

“She went up.”

“Oh, well.” He looked around for a moment, then sat next to her. He’d spent the time after dinner last night sucking up to the old lady; if he had any sense, he’d be glad she wasn’t here so he could do something else. “I hope she’s all right.”

“I’m sure she was just tired.”

“Well, shall we play cards or something?” Guilford suggested. 

“ _Anything_ else, please,” said Lady Laura. “We played bridge almost all day.” 

Those were O’Brien sentiments exactly. The Dowager had suggested it, and of course the rest of the girls had fallen into line. She suspected the Dowager had hoped to have an excuse to exclude her, but O’Brien knew how to play—the first lady she’d been lady’s maid to had been devoted to the game, and insisted she learn so she could supply a fourth if necessary. 

“Charades, then?” asked Lord Eustace Fielding. 

The relative merits of various parlour games were debated for several minutes, until Twenty Questions was settled on. Dr. Ley drew the lot to go first, and won, since it turned out he’d picked some obscure fungus that none of the rest of them had heard of.

“But you said it wasn’t vegetable,” Lady Bloggs protested. “A mushroom’s a vegetable; I know it is.”

“Not quite,” Dr. Ley said. “Members of the plant, or vegetable, kingdom produce their own energy through photosynthesis. The fungi are a separate kingdom; they absorb energy from rotting matter.”

“Of course,” Tom said. “I should have known that. Oh, well. I suppose we’ll have to draw lots again?”

“I’ll go, if no one else likes to,” said Lord Eustace. This was agreed to. 

Once animal, vegetable, and mineral were dispensed with, the Hon. Mary Guilford asked, “Is it something we’re all likely to be familiar with?”

“Yes,” said Eustace. And he violated the rule of giving strictly yes-and-no answers by adding, “Some of us more than others.”

There was something insinuating about the way he said it. Lady Laura, who had the next turn asking, apparently noticed, because she said, “Is it something that can be mentioned in mixed company?”

“Of course it is.”

The article in question turned out to be a clothes-brush. “Funny, I thought Lord Ogilvy would get that,” he said. Sir Basil chortled unpleasantly. 

Before O’Brien had quite decided how to react, Lord Guilford said, “I say, Fielding!”

“As he’s always so well turned out,” Eustace said smoothly. “Goodness, I hope no one thinks I meant anything else.”

#

“I hope you won’t listen to anything Fielding says,” Guildford said confidentially, as he took the seat next to Thomas. “No one else does. Well—no one should. There’s always someone willing to listen to the braying of a jackass.”

“Did he say something insulting? I hadn’t noticed,” Thomas said. The ladies had just decided to go up, and he hoped he could make his own escape soon, but Father had taken Dr. Ley off to see something in the laboratory a little while ago, and one of them had to stay until everyone went. 

“That’s the way to handle it,” Guilford agreed. “Unless you want to challenge him to a duel. There was a time at Oxford when it was his life’s ambition to be in a duel—I don’t know if he ever managed it, so I wouldn’t indulge him if I were you.”

“Wasn’t planning to.”

Fielding, after helping himself to a whiskey and soda, ambled over. “We can have that game of cards, now that the ladies have gone.”

“I don’t know if anyone wants to,” Guilford said. “It’s a bit late.”

“Not that late,” said Walter, who had heard. “I’d like to.”

Damn him for a scheming little social climber, Thomas thought. 

“So would I,” said Sir Basil, and the rest agreed. 

Thomas had trouble keeping a straight face at the stakes Fielding initially proposed. Fortunately, Sir Basil and Courtenay talked him down to something a little more reasonable; Fielding eventually gave in, saying, “Well, if you’re going to be a lot of old _women_ about it.”

As they repaired to the game room, Thomas consoled himself with the thought that at least he could smoke as much as he wanted. And cards, at least, were something he already knew. Carson didn’t allow gambling in the servants’ hall at Downton, but there were usually opportunities to be found when they were in London. 

They had been playing a short time when Father stuck his head in. “I’m going up, and I’ve sent Simpson to bed as well,” he said. “So you fellows will have to look after yourselves for the rest of the evening.”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine, sir,” said Walter. 

“I expect Lord Ogilvy knows where you keep everything, in the way of whiskey and so on,” Fielding added.

“Of course he does,” Father said. “Good night.”

Not long after that, Thomas’s luck with the cards turned. He had what he thought was a fair bit of money—they’d never quite talked about an allowance, but it just sort of turned up, from time to time, and there was little to spend it on—but at the stakes they were playing, a few losing hands in a row had him tapped out. He said so, and Walter spoke up, “I’m getting a bit short myself—I hate to be a spoilsport, but maybe we’d better pack it in.”

“Nonsense,” said Fielding. “We can continue on credit—after all, we’re all gentlemen here. Aren’t we.” He looked pointedly between Walter and Thomas. 

“Of course we are,” said Walter stoutly. “I just didn’t want to suggest it on such a short acquaintance.”

“Good,” said Fielding, who had, at some point, taken possession of the whiskey decanter; he topped up Walter’s and Thomas’s glasses, and they kept playing.

#

“I hate to say it about an earl’s son,” Walter said as they walked out with their guns the next morning. “But do you think Fielding might be a cheat?”

“No,” Thomas said. “I think we’re both idiots who drank too much and let him goad us into betting money we didn’t have.” He knew how to cheat at cards, in theory at least, and he was sure he would have noticed if Fielding had been. 

“My head’s splitting,” Walter said. “I think it might fall off when the shooting starts.”

“Surely you drank more than that at those wartime parties you’re always going on about.”

“Yes, but I didn’t get up two hours later and stand in a field shooting at things.” Their boots scuffed through the grass for a few moments. “Did he corner you after breakfast to show you the promissory note, and say he knows you’ll settle up before they leave day after tomorrow?”

“Before breakfast, but yes,” Thomas said. “Up until then I’d been hoping it was a bad dream. I don’t know what I’ll tell Father.”

“I’m not going to tell my guv’nor anything,” Walter said. 

“I have to; I don’t have the money.” Walter hadn’t lost quite as much as he had, if he remembered things right.

“Neither do I. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.”

“What?” It wasn’t impossible that Walter would have a good idea—it had to happen sometime. 

“I’ll ask mater. Mothers are always more sympathetic about this kind of thing,” he explained. 

Fat lot of good that would do him. 

Still, by the time they went in to luncheon, no better idea had occurred to him, so he managed to get O’Brien alone and said, “Fancy a smoke?”

They nipped up to her dressing room. “What have you done now?” she demanded once the door was closed.

Thomas told her. 

“How much?”

He named the figure. She swore. “Don’t tell your father.”

“That’s what Walter said. But I’ve got to pay Fielding off before they leave—if I don’t, he might tell Father himself.”

“How could you have been so bloody stupid?”

“I don’t know.” He hesitated. “I thought I might ask Grandmamma. She’s probably got something socked away.”

“Don’t you dare tell her, either.”

“She’s not that bad, once you get to know her,” Thomas said. 

“We don’t need to give her one more thing to hold over us.”

“You have a better idea?”

O’Brien looked around the room wildly. “Yes,” she said, going to her jewel box and dumping it out. “These are meant to be mine, now, so it’s our business what we do with them.” She picked out a necklace. “Take this down to Perth and hock it; it should fetch about the right amount.”

“Wasn’t this one of the ones the old lady gave you?” Thomas said, weighing the thing in his palm. It was a massive clump of gold and rubies—probably worth a lot more than his debt, if they found the right jeweler instead of taking it to a pawnshop. “What if she asks why you don’t wear it?”

“I’ll say it doesn’t suit my coloring,” O’Brien said impatiently. “Do it today—you never know if the ladies might decide to go shopping or something tomorrow. Go up to your room—I’ll tell the others you have a sick headache, and once the men are gone, you can sneak out.”

#

“Are you all right, Thomas?” Findlater asked, when they met on the way down to dinner. Thomas had sent Sarah with his excuses for missing the afternoon’s shooting. Findlater wasn’t sure if Thomas was really ill, was troubled by his nerves as Guilford had been the day before, or if he was troubled by what Findlater had reluctantly concluded were Fielding’s clear demonstrations of dislike. He hoped Sarah, at least, had been told the truth, whatever it was. Thomas did look a little pale.

“Yes, I—” Thomas paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Actually, I’ve been avoiding Courtenay.” 

“Oh?” He hadn’t noticed any signs of hostility from that gentleman, but he could easily have missed something. “Let’s go into my study for a moment,” he suggested. 

They did so. After Findlater had poured a drink for each of them, Thomas said, “Do you remember, at dinner night before last, I said I knew Edward Courtenay at hospital?”

“Yes,” Findlater said. Was it that Thomas didn’t want to admit to having been an orderly there, and not an officer?

“Edward—Lieutenant Courtenay—took his own life. I gather Major Clarkson didn’t think the family should have to know. It sounds a bit like his brother suspects there’s something more to the story. I don’t know whether I should tell him, or just say we kept him comfortable and he died painlessly.”

“I see,” Findlater said. He wasn’t sure either. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s a matter of whether knowing the truth would give him more peace, or if he’s better off not knowing. I don’t know him well enough to say.”

“Well, I certainly don’t. Or what Edward would’ve wanted, either. He was a bit angry at his brother, actually. I know I shouldn’t tell Jack that.”

“Probably not,” Findlater agreed. “Do you know…why he did it?” That was what the family was most likely to want to know; if Thomas had no idea, telling would leave them with more questions than they’d had before.

“I have a pretty good idea, yeah.” Thomas lit a cigarette. “It was a case of gas blindness. He was—he didn’t know how he could go on, not being able to see, once it was clear he wasn’t going to get better. He was the sporting type—he would have loved to be here, for the shooting, I know it. If he’d been able to see. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to do any of that, and he had a letter from home saying Jack was pretty much going to take over as heir—at least, he took it that way. Maybe Jack meant to be reassuring, that the place would still be taken care of. It was somebody else who read it to him, so I don’t know exactly what it said.” Thomas blew out a line of smoke and stared at it for a while. “Anyway. I started helping him. Me and Nurse Crawley. Teaching him to walk with a stick an’ all.”

Thomas’s voice wobbled. Even if it hadn’t, Findlater would have known that he was in the grip of strong emotion, from the way he allowed his accent to slip further than Findlater had ever heard it. 

“He seemed to be feeling a bit better about it,” Thomas continued. “Getting the idea of how his life could go on, you know. I had—this is stupid. I had all these plans about how after the war I could be ‘is valet. Help him out, you know. I never said anything about it to ‘im. Maybe I should’ve. But then Major Clarkson said it was time for him to go to the convalescent home—this was before we had the one at Downton; the nearest place was pretty far away. Got into a real argument with Major Clarkson about it—I thought it was too soon, to send him away when he’d just started to get a grip on things.”

That must have been what Dr. Clarkson had been talking about, when he’d said that Thomas questioned his decisions a time or two. Findlater was starting to get a strong idea of exactly how Thomas had been proved right.

“But the Major didn’t listen, said he had to go the next day to make room for new patients. He killed himself that night. Slit ‘is wrists.”

“That sounds awful,” Findlater said. The fantasy was a touching one, revealing of a rather deeply-buried vein of kindness in him. Findlater would have liked to see more of that side of Thomas. If he himself had been the orderly in question, Findlater would have supposed that a romantic attachment was likely, but the odds of Thomas taking after him in that way were slim. For the sake of the estate, he could only hope so. 

“It was. That was how Lady Sybil convinced ‘er mum to let us have the convalescent home at Downton—saying he wouldn’t of done it if he’d been able to stay nearby. I’m not saying staying with me—us—would have made everything all right, but we could’ve got him through the worst of it.”

“I’m sure,” Findlater said. “One needs…a reason to keep trying, after something like that.” For himself, he’d managed to overcome his wound well enough, but when the entire family fell like dominoes, he’d scarcely been able to bear up under the knowledge that the whole line would end, forever, with him. Not just the title, but the unique combination of hereditary factors that had been passed down from parent to child since the creation of the title. No better or more special than any other such line in the family of man, maybe, but their own, and about to go the way of the dinosaurs. It was only finding out he had a son that had brought him up out of despair. 

So he had no trouble at all imagining that Thomas could have performed the same miracle for someone else. 

“Anyway,” Thomas said, “I don’t know if Courtenay would be better off knowing or not. Might help to have someone to blame.”

Findlater had almost forgotten why Thomas was telling him the story. “Yes. I think….if I were you, I should ask Guilford. He knows Courtnay. Knew both of them. He might have some idea what’s best.”

Thomas looked a little bit surprised, but nodded. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

Findlater rang for Simpson, and had him bring Guilford to them. “Thank you for coming, Guilford. We hoped you might be able to advise us on a delicate matter.”

Guilford nodded warily. “Of course, Lord Findlater. How can I help?”

Thomas launched into an abbreviated version of the story. To Findlater’s eye, Guilford looked a little _relieved_ once he’d started. Odd. 

“That _is_ difficult,” he said when Thomas had finished. “Hard to imagine Courtenay doing a thing like that—but the war changes people.” He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s hard to say for certain, but I think if I were Jack, I’d want to know. He’s been wondering about it—they were told his wounds weren’t life-threatening, and then all of the sudden he was dead. Better to know the worst than to always wonder, I think. And he can decide whether to tell their parents.”

Thomas nodded. “All right.”

“I’ll be there when you tell him, if you like,” Guilford offered. “There’s no telling how he’ll take it—not that I think he’d take a swing at you, or anything like that, but…well, it might help to have someone there who knows them both.”

Thomas agreed to that, and the two young men decided they’d talk to Jack Courtenay after dinner. “You can bring him in here, if you’d like,” Findlater suggested. “Perhaps while the others are having port.”

“Thank you, Father,” Thomas said. 

“Of course.” This business of being a father was turning out to be difficult in ways he hadn’t anticipated, but he was glad Thomas felt he could come to him for help.

#

Thomas was glad, in the end, that he’d told Jack Courtenay the truth—he’d taken it well, and while Thomas didn’t like him the way he had Edward, he seemed nice enough. 

And asking Father what to do about it seemed to have worked out well. He wouldn’t have said anything, except that it had been obvious Father knew something was wrong, and he had to say _something_ other than the truth. Except that he’d said more truth than he meant to, talking about Edward. Funny, he’d never had a chance to really talk about him before—it seemed like everyone had realized what an awful thing it was for Lady Sybil, finding him like that, but Thomas had been left to tidy away the body and mop up the blood like it hadn’t been somebody he cared about.

But he definitely shouldn’t have said the part about wanting to be Edward’s valet. Somebody who had the makings of an earl didn’t go daydreaming about being anybody’s valet. 

At least he hadn’t said anything about how he still sometimes thought he’d have liked that life better than the one he had. 

After the guests left, Thomas had time to catch his breath. Walter had told him, before he and Polly left for their own party, that he was devoting the rest of his life to clean living and spiritual contemplation. Polly had said that meant Thomas should look for him in his usual haunts in a week or ten days. 

The next challenge he faced was trying to hire a valet. They’d gotten a pretty good response to the ads they’d placed, demonstrating that either word had not spread, or some applicants considered valeting a footman or lady’s-maiding a lady’s maid preferable to starvation. O’Brien went through hers immediately, gleefully criticizing the applicants’ credentials, references, and spelling, but Thomas let his pile up and eventually, when O’Brien nagged him about it, gave Simpson the letters and told him to pick out a few for Thomas to interview.

When the first applicant showed up, Thomas thought that Simpson must be having a joke on him. The man—Clark, his name was—only had one hand. Sticking out of the other jacket sleeve, there was just a hook.

A bloody hook. “You, ah, haven’t worked since the war?” Thomas asked, trying not to stare at the hook.

“No, my lord. I’ve been…recovering. From my wound.”

“Right,” he said. “About that.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but can you even dress _yourself_?”

The man flushed. “I’ve been working on it. I need to earn, my lord. I’ve a mother and sisters to support, and my pension isn’t enough.”

That was hardly _his_ problem, was it? Thomas barely stopped himself from saying so. Since the gambling debacle, he’d thought it might be best if he tried to model himself after someone who really knew what he was doing as an earl, instead of louts like Fielding. Someone like Lord Grantham wouldn’t have let himself be goaded into wagering money he didn’t have, and he was pretty sure Mr. Crawley wouldn’t have, either. So what might he do in this situation? “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “But I don’t see how it can work out. Were you anyone’s batman in the war? Because I’d ask him, if I were you.” It had worked for Bates, anyway. Although Thomas thought even Lord Grantham would have quailed at the hook. 

“My officer was killed, my lord. By the same shell that did this.” He held up the hook.

Oh. “You can tell Simpson I’ve said to reimburse you the train fare—we shouldn’t have put you to the trouble of coming all this way.” Grantham would definitely do that, at least. “And luncheon, or something to take with you on the train if the next one’s soon.”

The man looked like he was about to argue about it, then took a deep breath. “Yes, my lord. Thank you. If you hear of anything that might be suitable….”

“Yes, I’m sure Simpson will have your address, if anything turns up.” 

A little while later, he summoned Simpson to the library. “This man Clark.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Did he mention the hook when he applied?”

“He mentioned a prosthetic hand. I’m afraid I didn’t entirely understand what he meant. I was expecting something a little less…drastic.”

“I see.”

“We’ve had a number of applicants who were crippled in the war, my lord,” Simpson continued. “I believe the impression may be that valeting is not as taxing as some other occupations.”

Well, it was easier than being a bloody farmhand. But if Thomas had ended up with a hook—and he could have—he wouldn’t have expected to be hired on as a valet again. “It’s all very well to want to provide a place for a man who’s been maimed serving his country,” Thomas said. “And I could live with an eye patch or something like that. Even a limp, I suppose.” The idea made him wince a little, but lots of people had limps. Father, for instance. “But a _hook_ is taking things a little far.”

“I understand, my lord.”

“You gave him his train fare?”

“Yes, and a packet of sandwiches.”

“Good. I told him let him know on the off chance we heard of anything appropriate for a man with a hook. I can’t imagine what would be appropriate, but we might as well save the letter for a month or two, so as not to make a liar of me.”

“Very good.”

#

“Thomas is doing quite well for himself, don’t you think?” Tom asked one evening at dinner. 

“I knew he would,” O’Brien answered. It was early September, and Thomas was at the Chathams’ balancing the dinner table for their shooting party. He had dined out a few times since the shooting party—at homes other than the Cunninghams’, even—but the invitation to the Chathams’ was a particular triumph. Not only were they a prominent family, but being an “extra man” for a neighbor was seen as a favor, and, as such, implied a close friendship between the host and guest. 

“Of course,” Tom said. “I’m only surprised people have come to see what a fine young man he is so quickly. I suppose we have Mama to thank for that.”

The Dowager, making a rare appearance at the family dinner table, nodded graciously. “I was able to help him make a start.”

“Did you know he’s going to the Ashlands’ ball?” Sarah asked. He’d gotten the invitation that morning at breakfast. 

“He had mentioned the invitation, yes,” the Dowager said. “Such a good family.”

“I’m sorry we haven’t been invited out more,” Tom said to her. “I expect people realize I can’t dance, with my leg. And a young man is always so much more in demand.”

The Dowager made a sound that, if she hadn’t been a lady, O’Brien would have described as a snort. They all knew that wasn’t why she and Tom were hardly ever asked anywhere. 

“Talking of balls,” the Dowager said, “Avery mentioned she didn’t see the ruby necklace that was my great-aunt Petunia’s in your jewel box. Were you wearing it?”

“No,” O’Brien said. What was Avery doing snooping through her jewel box? “I’m sure it’s in there; she probably just didn’t see it. Did you want to borrow it?” She wanted to remind the Dowager that she’d said the jewels were hers now. “I can look for it later.”

“No, I just wondered.”

The hell she did. O’Brien was sure she suspected something. 

“Perhaps Avery sent it out to be cleaned or something,” Tom suggested. 

“If she had,” the Dowager pointed out, “she would hardly have asked me if I knew where it was.”

Tom wilted a little, but said, “She could have forgotten.”

“I’m sure it’s in my jewel box, where it always is,” O’Brien said. If only she’d managed to find her own lady’s maid—then the Dowager’s maid would have no excuse to be poking around in her jewel box, and the new maid wouldn’t know what was supposed to be in there. “The only ones who have access to the box are myself and Avery, so it must be.”

That night, she waited up until Thomas came home, and went to his room after she heard him dismiss Jamie for the night. “Do you still have the claim ticket for that necklace?”

Thomas blinked at her. “Good evening, Mother. Yes, I had a nice time at the Chathams’, thanks.”

“I don’t need any of your sauce. Do you have the ticket, or not?”

“Somewhere, probably. Why?”

“We need to get the necklace back. The old lady had her maid snoop in my things, and she knows it’s missing.”

“We need more than just the ticket to get it back,” Thomas pointed out. “We need the money, too—and we don’t have it. Unless you want to hock something else.”

That would only delay the problem—and compound the debt, since they’d lose more money every time they pawned something. “Is there some other way you can get the money? What about cards?”

“That’s how I got us in this mess to begin with,” Thomas said. 

“You could cheat.”

“I’d get caught!” He stood up and went to his cigarette box. “Here, have one of these; it’ll calm your nerves.”

She accepted. “I don’t need my nerves calming; I need a good story to tell the old lady.”

“What did you say so far?”

“That I’m sure it’s in the box. That won’t hold her for long, since it _isn’t_.”

“I’d have gone with ‘What ruby necklace?’ myself,” Thomas said. 

“Easy for you to say that now!”

Thomas smoked own cigarette down to the nub. “All right. Just keep saying it must be around somewhere—have the maid search. I’ll see if I can figure out some way to get the money to get it back.”

#

Thomas decided that the best plan for getting the money was to go back to his first idea—asking the Dowager. Only now telling her the truth was right out, so he had to think of some other reason he needed a staggering sum of money. He settled on hinting that it might be convenient to have two motors—what would happen if Father had a Natural History Society meeting on the same evening he had an engagement?—thinking that she might give him a bank draft to purchase one, and he could be a little vague about how much it had cost.

Unfortunately, he’d forgotten that his birthday was coming up—no one had paid the slightest bit of attention to it since Mum and Dad had died, except for O’Brien sometimes saying, “Isn’t your birthday somewhere around here?” and giving him a packet of fags. 

This time, however, the cook made all his favorites, they had Walter and Polly over, and Father gave him the keys to a sporty little open-top touring car. It was, in Walter’s words, an absolutely ripping car, but its sudden disappearance would have been even more difficult to explain than the necklace’s had been. 

Still, the Dowager seemed to be buying that the necklace had just been misplaced somehow, so Thomas tried to put it out of his mind and enjoy the new car. It was a bit difficult, though, with O’Brien bringing it up every time they talked privately. He was a little glad, on the day of the Ashford’s ball, to be able to slip out without talking to her—at least he could have one evening free from worrying about the damn thing.

#

“I wonder if--” Findlater said, at the same time as Sarah said,

“I hate to say it but--”

They were dining alone again, since Thomas was at the Ashfords’ ball and Mama was having a tray in her room. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

“I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to wonder if someone might have taken it.”

“Taken what?”

“The necklace,” Sarah explained.

Of course. It seemed like Thomas and the necklace were all he and Sarah ever talked about. He didn’t know why Mama and Sarah were both so concerned about the Mystery of the Missing Necklace. Mama had never worn it, that he had seen—it had been old fashioned even when he’d been a child—and it seemed unlikely that Sarah would choose to wear it, even if she was invited to an appropriate occasion, for the same reason. “Didn’t you say only Avery could have gotten to it?”

“Well, yes. That’s why I hate to say it.”

“She’s been with Mama for years.” Still, it wouldn’t do to have a thief looking after an invalid. Anything could happen. “Maybe we’d better have Mrs. Wallace search her room.”

“I can’t imagine she’d have it in her room,” Sarah objected. “Even if she had taken it, I mean. And I hope she didn’t, but if she did, wouldn’t she have sold it?”

“I suppose you’re right.” Still, now that Sarah had suggested the possibility, they really had to look into it. And it wouldn’t do any good to accuse Avery without evidence. “But even then, she’d have the money, or evidence of debts—something.” He nodded. “A thorough search should give us some idea of whether there’s anything in it or not.”

“I hate to have any unpleasantness,” Sarah said. 

He considered. “Avery goes out sometimes, doesn’t she? If Mrs. Wallace searches carefully, while she’s out, and the search proves her innocent, neither Avery nor Mama need know it ever took place.”

“That may be the best way,” Sarah agreed. “I believe her day out is this coming Sunday.”

“All right, then. After dinner I’ll ask Simpson to ask Mrs. Wallace….”

“Perhaps we should speak to Mrs. Wallace directly,” Sarah suggested. “We wouldn’t want to tarnish Avery’s reputation in the household by having it known that we suspected her—if she does turn out to be innocent, I mean.”

“Yes, you’re quite right,” Findlater said. 

She nodded. “You were saying something else, before I brought up the distressing subject?”

“Oh, I was just thinking, I hope Thomas likes the new motor. Mama was quite sure he wanted one, but I wonder if he would have liked to pick it out himself.”

“I’m sure he likes it,” Sarah said.

Well, if he didn’t, Findlater supposed she was the only one he might tell. “Good. I enjoyed choosing it—particularly since it’s the first birthday gift I’ve given him. It seemed nicer than just handing him a bank draft.” They could have gone together to choose it, though. Thomas might have liked that. 

#

“My goodness.” Lady Edith brought a hand to the emerald necklace at her throat. Thomas couldn’t get away from necklaces, it seemed. “Lord Ogilvy. I wasn’t expecting to see you here. What a thrilling surprise.”

“Ah, you’ve met Lord Ogilvy?” Lady Ashford asked.

“Yes, we’ve—danced together once or twice,” Edith said, “and Mama is on most intimate terms with Lady Findlater.”

“How lovely,” Lady Ashford said. 

“Is Lady Grantham here?” Thomas asked. “I’m sure Mother would be glad to see her.”

“No, she and Papa are both at home. I came quite on my own—to escape the whirl of preparations for Mary’s wedding, I’m afraid. But she’ll be so pleased when I tell her I’ve seen you.” She fumbled for her dance card. “Here, I think I have a foxtrot free….”

Amused, Thomas wrote his name. He almost put Barrow, for a joke, but didn’t. 

“I should pay my regards to Lady Findlater,” Edith said, looking around.

“Oh, she’s not here,” Thomas said. “Father doesn’t dance, with his leg the way it is, and, well….” 

“Of course. Perhaps I’ll call on her—I’m here for a few days.”

“I’m sure she’d like that.” Thomas saw another lady making a bee-line for Edith, so he slipped away. 

Later, when their dance came up, Edith said, “I was so surprised to see you here….”

“Not carrying a tray, you mean?” 

“No. I mean—I’d noticed Huntingtower was nearby. I just didn’t think of you going to balls, somehow.”

“Not everyone’ll invite me,” Thomas admitted. “But a lot of ‘em are too scared of the old lady not to. The Dowager Lady Findlater, I mean.”

“Is she…a bit like Grandmamma, then?”

“Worse.” 

“Goodness. The mind reels.” After a few measures of the music, Edith said, “The Chathams—the people I’m staying with—were asking how I knew you. I wasn’t quite sure what to say. I mean, I didn’t want to say anything that you wouldn’t like spread around.”

“They all know I was a bastard, if that’s what you mean,” Thomas said. “But we’re trying to keep the footman part quiet.”

“That was what I meant, thanks. I don’t suppose—well, it would be hard to keep secret that your parents were so recently married.”

“Yes. Actually, I’m sure word’s getting round about the other part, too. We had a party up for the shooting a few weeks ago, and a couple of the valets recognized me.”

“Surely they wouldn’t tell on you. If they’re your friends.”

“Are you friends with everyone of your class?” Thomas asked. 

“Touché,” Edith said, after a moment’s hesitation. “Really, I’m surprised no one has recognized you on their own—I see at least a dozen people here we’ve had at Downton. But I suppose no one really looks at a footman.”

“No,” Thomas said. “No one does.” 

“It’s funny,” Edith said. 

“What is?”

“How things change. Sybil running off with Branson. You becoming Lord Ogilvy, and O’Brien being Lady Findlater. It’s like you’ve all become different people. Or like we’re all supposed to pretend you have. We couldn’t have danced before, except at the Servants’ Ball, but now we can. And Branson can be invited to dinner at our house, but Sybil can’t be invited anywhere else. It’s just…funny.”

“You’re only just now figuring out the class system’s a bit funny?”

“I suppose I just never had a reason to think about it before.”

All right for some, Thomas thought.

“All around me, people are changing, but I’m still the same old Edith.” She smiled wryly. “Of course, I’ve no one to blame but myself, if I don’t do something about it, like Sybil did. I don’t mean running off with a chauffeur,” she added hastily. “But taking up a profession of some kind…I’ve thought about doing it, but I don’t suppose I ever shall.”

“Not if you don’t pick one and make it happen,” Thomas agreed. “Or a new set of parents turn up and whisk you away to be a farm laborer or something.” It was an outrageous thing to say—if he’d still been at Downton, Carson would have torn a strip off him for what he was implying about the Countess. 

But Edith smiled. “I almost wish they would—I suppose that sounds very silly to you. I’m sure I’d regret it when I was up at dawn milking the cows.”

“Actually, if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that having nothing to do but go to parties and wear nice clothes all the time isn’t as much fun as you’d think. Once the novelty wears off. And I could do without all the people wondering when and who I’ll marry, too.”

“Oh, yes, that—that’s the best part. I wouldn’t think there’s quite as much pressure for a man, though.”

“There is if you’re the end of the line,” Thomas said. “Grandmamma keeps saying there’s no hurry, but if the same girl speaks to me twice, she starts speculating on whether the parents could be talked into accepting me.” 

“Hm. I suppose being an,” she hesitated, and plowed on, “illegitimate former footman is almost as much of a handicap, on the marriage market, as being the plainest of three sisters.”

“Formerly illegitimate former footman,” Thomas corrected. He kind of admired her for saying the words, and not just saying, “Your situation” or something like that. “We’re in Scotland now; I’m as legitimate as anyone.”

“Of course.” 

The dance ended, and the musicians started putting away their instruments. Thomas hadn’t noticed their dance was the one before the supper break. “Shall I take you in, or is there someone else I can help you find?” 

“Er.” She looked around. “I hadn’t arranged to meet anyone, so if you don’t mind….”

“I don’t,” Thomas said, realizing it was true. It was kind of nice to talk to someone he didn’t have to impress, who knew the whole story, and who wasn’t O’Brien. It made a change. 

#

O’Brien had just settled herself in the drawing room, after making a quick visit to the female servants’ corridor, when Simpson asked if she was at home to Lady Edith Crawley. 

“Yes,” she said cautiously. What was _she_ doing here? “Bring tea, please, once you’ve shown her in.”

Lady Edith came into the room. “I hope you’ll forgive me for dropping in,” she said. “I’m so pleased to have found you at home. I know Mama would never forgive me if I didn’t pay my regards.”

“Of course,” O’Brien said. “You’re welcome any time, and I hope you’ll give my regards to Lady Grantham.” She would have thought Lady-call-me-Cora-Grantham would make the call herself, if she was in the neighborhood. 

“I will—she’ll be so pleased I’ve seen you.”

“If I had known the family was coming this way, we’d have had you to dinner.”

“It’s just me, not the whole family. Didn’t Thomas say? I’m staying with the Chathams; I didn’t realize how close it was to Huntingtower until I ran into him at the Ashfords’.”

“No, Lord Ogilvy didn’t mention he saw you,” she said pointedly. She had no business calling him “Thomas,” as if he were still a footman. 

“Oh.” Edith looked a little…disappointed? “Well, I suppose he danced with any number of ladies.” She looked up at Simpson, who had come in with the tea. “Thank you.”

O’Brien accepted her own cup. “I expect he did.” So Lady Edith had lowered herself to dance with her father’s old valet, and she clearly expected it to have been the highlight of his week. “It’s difficult to keep track of all of my son’s social engagements.”

“I’m sure it is,” Edith said.

Deciding she’d done enough to put Edith in her place, Sarah asked, “How are things at Downton?”

Edith talked quite a bit—about the plans for Mary and Matthew’s wedding, Sybil’s new baby, and even about the harvest, but she didn’t say anything about how her ladyship was getting along without her. Nor did she mention whether Carson had come to realize how he should have appreciated Thomas more when he was there, or if Anna was still chirpily insisting that Bates was innocent, or, in fact, any of the things that O’Brien would have liked to know, but would have rather cut off her own arm than ask. 

#

“Mama?” Father said, appearing in the doorway to the Dowager’s room while Thomas was there for Sunday afternoon tea. “I hope you don’t mind my intruding on your visit with Thomas.” 

“Of course not,” Grandmamma said. “Thomas, ring the bell, and we’ll have Mrs. Wallace bring another cup. So inconvenient when Avery isn’t here, but of course she must have her day out….”

As Thomas got up to ring the bell, Father said, “It’s about Avery that I’ve come, actually.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” Father hesitated. “Sarah thinks, and I quite agree, that it’s beginning to look as though her necklace—the one that had been Aunt Petunia’s—must have been stolen.”

“Oh, it can’t have been,” Grandmamma said. “I did tell her to make sure only Avery knew where the key to the jewel safe was kept.”

“I’m sure it was just misplaced,” Thomas said. Why would O’Brien suggest that the necklace had been stolen? Unless.…

Father glanced at him, then back at Grandmamma. “I hope that’s all it is. But I’ve asked Mrs. Wallace to search Avery’s room, as a precaution.”

Thomas would have bet anything that Father hadn’t come up with that idea on his own. And O’Brien wouldn’t have suggested it if she didn’t expect the housekeeper to find something. 

“I had thought to avoid troubling you with the matter until we know one way or the other,” Father continued, “but Mrs. Wallace isn’t comfortable conducting the search without your knowledge.” 

Grandmamma considered. “I hardly think Avery would do such a thing. But we must know, mustn’t we? Yes, I think you had better instruct Mrs. Wallace to carry out the search.”

“All right,” Father said. He hesitated. “If she did take it, we’ll have to dismiss her, of course.”

“No!” Thomas said, before he’d quite realized he was going to say it. Father and the Dowager both turned to look at him. “I mean—it seems a bit harsh, to dismiss her out of hand.” Particularly given what Thomas knew, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, O’Brien must have done. 

“I suppose it does,” Father said. “But we cannot have a…have someone in the house we cannot trust. Especially caring for Mama.”

“Of course,” Thomas said. He shouldn’t have said anything. The last thing they needed was Father figuring out exactly who it was he couldn’t trust. Really, the sooner Avery was sacked, and with as little hearing, the better for him and O’Brien. And that was what was really important, wasn’t it? “I was just thinking of…Mother,” he said weakly. 

Father gave him a sympathetic look. “I quite understand. But it’s hardly the same. The necklace is…well, it’s of considerable value, both monetary and sentimental.”

“Right,” Thomas said quickly. “Of course, it’s…not the same.” 

But the most important way it wasn’t the same was that Avery had not, in fact, done anything. 

Funny, how he’d gotten into this mess to begin with because Fielding had taunted him about not being a real gentleman. He couldn’t help feeling that this proved Fielding right—how many times had he heard some footman or valet, unfairly accused or dismissed without notice, say, “So-and-so may be a lord, but he ain’t a gentleman?”

Even worse, _Carson_ was right. In retrospect, he should have confessed a month ago, when all he’d have had to admit to was being a bit stupid. He was hardly the first lord’s son to get carried away at the card table and wind up with an embarrassing debt. But stealing, lying, and framing a maid had “appalling lack of moral fiber” written all over it.

He couldn’t do anything about the stealing and lying, but the frame-up hadn’t quite come off yet. If he could get to Avery’s room before Mrs. Wallace did, he could get back whatever evidence O’Brien had planted. After that…he didn’t know. But it would buy him a little time to figure something out. 

So when Mrs. Wallace came in with the tea, Thomas made up an excuse to duck out, and hurried to find O’Brien. 

#

O’Brien was in the drawing room, waiting for the hue and cry that would surely follow when the Dowager’s lady’s maid was found to be a dirty thief, when Thomas burst in. “What did you do?” he demanded.

“Whatever do you mean?” She looked around, making sure none of the servants were snooping. 

“Father just came up and asked Grandmamma about having Mrs. Wallace search Avery’s room.”

“Well,” she said, “what do you _think_ I did, then?”

“What’s she going to find?” Thomas asked.

“The pawn ticket and as much cash as I could scrape together. I made sure to plant the idea in his mind that’s she’d probably sold it.”

“Where did you put it?”

“What’s it to you?” she asked. 

“If I’m going to get it back without getting caught, I need to know where to look.”

“Why the bloody hell would you do that?”

“Because if I don’t, she’s going to get sacked.”

“Of course she is. We can’t have a thief working here—especially not as lady’s maid to an invalid.”

“But she’s not _actually_ a thief!”

“You’re awfully moral all of the sudden,” she observed. “It’s not like we haven’t done it before, and I didn’t see you doing anything about it.”

“Avery never did anything to us.”

“Not unless you count sneaking on me to the old lady. Anyway, we couldn’t exactly put it on John Bates, could we?”

“We could have just kept saying it had to be around somewhere. I’d have come up with a way to round up the money eventually,” Thomas suggested unconvincingly. 

“If you did get the money, we’d end up having to explain where it had gone. This way, the problem’s finished once and for all.” 

“She’ll never find another place, with a reputation as a thief,” Thomas said. 

“It was either her or us,” O’Brien reminded him. Thomas was losing his nerve, she thought, and he had to be reminded what the stakes were. “Do you think it was easy for _me_ to find another place after the old lady sacked me? Or you would have found another place if Carson had gotten you for that bottle of wine?”

“I just don’t think we should be--”

“What do you think we _should_ do, then?” She knew he didn’t have a better idea; if he did, he would have already shared it.

“Look at it this way. Would her ladyship have ever done something like this?”

That was completely irrelevant. “ _Her ladyship_ never had to fight for everything she has,” O’Brien said. It was worse than Thomas losing his nerve; he’d been infected with _noblesse oblige_. “I’ve been thrown out of this house once before, and I’ll be damned before it happens again.”

“He can’t actually _sack_ his own wife and son.”

“Maybe not, but he can divorce me, and not give you another penny until he drops over dead.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Thomas said weakly. 

“That’s what you think.”

Thomas stared at her for a moment, looking confused and hurt. As if he hadn’t know what she was like, and wasn’t exactly the same way himself. “Are you going to tell me where you put it, or not?”

“No,” she said. “I’m not. If you want to fall on your sword like an idiot, that’s your business, but I’m not going to help you do it. And if you do get caught, don’t expect me to back you up.”

#

Furious at O’Brien’s stubbornness, Thomas hurried up the maids’ staircase. He could only hope that Grandmamma would keep Mrs. Wallace long enough, or that she’d have something else to do before making the search. 

Fortunately, the rooms were labeled, as they had been at Downton. He slipped into the one marked “Avery,” closing the door behind him.

There were few places to search. He decided to start with under the mattress, but found nothing. Same with the pockets of the coat and dresses hanging from the pegs, and the battered valise and hatbox up on the shelf. He contemplated the small fireplace for a moment, before deciding, reluctantly, that the bureau was a better bet than up the flue. It was more than a little embarrassing, pawing through a woman’s private things, and since he was looking for a pawn ticket and some money, he had to look closely. 

At the worst possible moment, Thomas heard the door creak open behind him. He was kneeling in front of the bureau, up to his elbows in knickers, and thoroughly aware that there was absolutely no innocent explanation for his position. 

“Lord Ogilvy!” Mrs. Wallace said. 

Thomas dropped what he was holding, or tried to. Some silken object he didn’t even want to try to identify had gotten caught on his wristwatch, and he had to shake his hand wildly to free it as he scrambled to his feet. 

There, he saw that things were even worse than he’d expected. “Thomas,” Father said. “I…certainly hope this isn’t what it looks like.”

#

Mrs. Wallace had asked Findlater to oversee the search, to ensure that all was strictly aboveboard. Findlater had worried that he might see things that a gentleman ought not to see, but he had certainly not expected to find Thomas rummaging through Avery’s intimate garments. 

“I certainly hope this isn’t what it looks like,” he blurted out. “I know I’m hardly one to talk, but she’s nearly old enough to be your mother.”

“Uh, no. Nothing like that. Er.” Thomas picked up the item he had nearly flung across the room and dropped it back in the drawer. “I was looking for—oh. This.” He reached into the drawer again and came out with a slip of paper, which he shoved in Findlater’s direction. 

Findlater looked at the slip. It was ticket for the pawn of a ruby necklace, for a considerable sum of cash. “I see,” he said, though he wasn’t entirely sure he did. 

“There should be some money, too. Somewhere.”

“Perhaps Mrs. Wallace would be so good as to look for it,” Findlater suggested. “And to put Avery’s room back into some semblance of order. I trust that I can rely on your discretion in this matter,” he added.

“Of course, my lord,” she said. 

To Thomas, Findlater continued, “I think that you and I had better talk.”

Thomas nodded meekly, and very quietly followed him down to his study, where Findlater poured them each a stiff measure of whiskey. Then he sat behind his desk and waited, looking directly at him.

He remembered the technique as having been very effective when his own father had done it, but Thomas seemed to be made of sterner stuff. Either that, or he was simply at a loss for how to explain himself. After finishing his drink, Findlater said, “I take it you were aware that this,” he brandished the pawn ticket, “would be in Miss Avery’s room.”

“Yes.”

“And you thought it best that it not be found by Mrs. Wallace.”

“Yes,” Thomas said again. 

That much was fairly obvious. “Why?”

“Er. Why did I know it was there, or why didn’t I want Mrs. Wallace to find it?”

“You might start with either.”

“I…didn’t want her to get in trouble.”

“Is there some particular reason you wanted to shield Avery from the consequences of her actions?” He could think of only one reason, but Thomas’s earlier denial—as well as several other factors—suggested that the likelihood of Thomas and Avery carrying on a clandestine relationship was remote. 

“Well, that’s the thing.” Thomas seemed disinclined to elaborate, but this time, the waiting and staring worked. “They weren’t exactly her actions. I mean, she didn’t steal the necklace. Or pawn it. We did.”

“We?” For a moment, Findlater thought Thomas meant himself and Avery, but that couldn’t possibly be true. Walter, perhaps?

“Me an’ O’Brien.”

It took Findlater a moment to remember who “O’Brien” was. “Your _mother_?” Why would she steal her own necklace?

“Yeah, and I hope you know she’s going to kill me for ratting her out, but I can’t explain without telling her part of it.”

“Please do explain,” Findlater said. 

“Well, it all started during the grouse party,” Thomas began. 

Thomas’s explanation was a bit rambling, but Findlater managed to piece together a story of unwise gambling, followed by recourse to his mother for assistance in covering the debt. The tale was not an unusual one, and the sum involved was not even particularly staggering. “All right,” Findlater said. “I think the only part of the story I’m missing is precisely how the evidence ended up in Avery’s room.”

“O’Brien put it there. I didn’t know she was going to—the first I knew about it was when you said she said she thought Avery stole it. But I knew what she must’ve done because it’s just like—” Thomas stopped abruptly. 

“Just like what?”

“Just like something that happened at Downton.”

“Something involving a bottle of wine? Or the butler’s wallet?”

Thomas gaped at him. “You know about that?”

“Mr. Carson mentioned it, yes.” 

“And you still….” Thomas trailed off, looking deeply confused. 

Findlater poured them each another drink; Thomas looked like he needed it. “Still what?”

“Er. Brought me here. Made me the heir and all that.”

Findlater wanted to be shocked at the idea that he’d have done otherwise, but he knew perfectly well that the entire purpose for investigating Thomas’s character was so that Thomas could be rejected if unsuitable. And Thomas clearly knew it, too. And, while he’d had moral qualms about checking his son’s references as though he was hiring a valet, he had done it. “Yes,” he said. 

Thomas swallowed hard, then knocked back his drink. “It was the snuffbox,” he said cryptically. “Not the wine. Or the wallet.” 

“Snuffbox?” Findlater didn’t remember anything about a snuffbox. 

“Maybe Carson never quite figured out what happened with that.” 

“What _did_ happen with that?” If Thomas was in the habit of incurring debts beyond his means, Findlater thought he had better know, so they could work out some manner of handling the problem without resorting to petty larceny.

Thomas told a complicated story, in which it emerged that he hadn’t stolen the box to sell it, but for the explicit aim of implicating someone named Bates in the theft. The bottle of wine was mentioned again, and apparently the theft of the wallet had been planned with the same aim. 

Findlater thought he could follow the mechanics of the scheme, but the motivation escaped him. “Why exactly did you do all of these things? Why were you trying to bring suspicion on this Bates person?”

“I wanted his job. The wine didn’t start out being part of that; I just took it to drink it, but then we used it against Bates when the snuffbox didn’t work out.”

“And who was your…co-conspirator, at that time?”

“O’Brien. She was helping me try to get the valet job.”

“So it turns out I’m married to Lady Macbeth,” Findlater murmured. How appropriate, given that they were in Scotland. “Thomas, if your mother ever asks me if I want to be Thane of Cawdor, remind me to run the other way.”

“What? Oh, right. Maybe I should tell you about the dog, too.”

Following the train of thought, Findlater feared that the story about the dog would involve murder, amateur dramatics, or possibly witchcraft, but it turned out Thomas had simply hidden the dog, in order to find it, as part of yet another bid to become Grantham’s valet. Compared to the rest, that one sounded like something out of a boys’ school story. “I see. And is that everything?”

“No, that one worked.” 

“And you hadn’t started on a campaign to become butler, yet, by the time I arrived?”

“No. I didn’t want to be butler, anyway. Just a valet.”

“I see.” It was all a bit more complicated than what Grantham’s butler had described, but, ultimately, more coherent as well. 

Thomas stood up and very carefully deposited the whiskey glass on the desk. “I know I’m not…what you had in mind. I understand. But if you’re chucking us out, do you think you could give me a head start on O’Brien? She really might kill me.”

Now it was Findlater’s turn to gape. He knew that the matter of checking Thomas’s character looked bad, but he really was shocked that Thomas thought he might…what? Disown him, like some Victorian patriarch? 

Thomas noticed his surprise, but apparently misunderstood the reason for it. “Not actually kill me. She’s not that much like Lady Macbeth. Even though she’s never given suck, far as I know, and I wish I hadn’t just said that. But she might beat me severely.”

“No one’s being thrown out,” Findlater said. “Where on Earth did you get an idea like that?”

“Er,” Thomas said. “O’Brien.”

Of course. And he didn’t have to ask where _she_ had gotten the idea—it was an entirely reasonable inference from experience. “Thomas, I believe we’ve gotten off to a rather poor start. And it’s my fault. I’ve never made it entirely clear what I expected…hoped for…when I sought you out.”

Thomas misunderstood. “I’m sorry. I know I can do better, if I could have another chance.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Findlater paused, struggling to put into words exactly what he did mean. “Making you my heir was never the point. That is to say, I didn’t begin searching for you with any expectation of that outcome. I wasn’t looking for a future Earl of Findlater; I was looking for my son. The two are linked, yes—because I am an earl, the question of an heir arises. But all I wanted in the beginning was to be able to know you, to care about your welfare. I know you’re a grown man, and you already had a father, but…well. That was what I wanted. To be your father. The earldom is…secondary. At best.”

Looking deeply thoughtful, Thomas slowly sat back down. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Findlater tried again. “I’m not precisely happy about any of these things you have done. But none of it changes the fact that you’re my son, and I care for you, and I would like us to be a family. Part of being my son is that one day you’ll be the Earl of Findlater, but that’s not the part that’s important to me.”

#

Thomas couldn’t entirely figure out how they got gotten from him being caught riffling through a lady’s maid’s knickers to this, but it sounded like Father was saying that, he, Thomas, was more important than the earldom. That he really didn’t care about all the lying and stealing and scheming, or not that much, anyway. The really surprising part was that he seemed to mean it. 

Maybe it shouldn’t have been hard to believe. He couldn’t really imagine telling Mum or Dad about all the rotten things he’d done over the last few years—he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have dared do them if Mum had been alive to hear about it—but if he had…well, Mum would have boxed his ears, whether he was thirty years old or not, but after that they’d still have loved him. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a proper family,” he said, trying out the idea.

“I know. And I…blame myself, for that. But perhaps it’s not too late. To try, at least.”

Thomas nodded slowly. Being somebody’s son, after all this time, might be even more of a stretch than being an earl’s heir. But there was something about it he liked the sound of. “All right. What do we do?”

Father smiled. “Well, to begin with, it might be a very good idea not to rely entirely on your mother when you find yourself in need of advice.”

“I’m beginning to see that,” Thomas allowed. “Just out of curiosity, what would have happened if I’d come to you that day during the shoot and said I lost almost a hundred pounds playing cards?”

“I’d have given you almost hundred pounds and suggested you try to be more careful,” Father said. 

“That…would have saved a lot of trouble,” Thomas admitted. “I…think I need some advice right now, actually. On several points.”

“I thought you might,” Father agreed. “Which ones did you have in mind?”

“Well, there’s still the necklace. And Grandmamma. She’s going to want to know what happened to it.” Thomas suspected Father might want to tell her the truth, an outcome he was eager to avoid.

“We can get the necklace back easily enough,” Father pointed out. “The pawn hasn’t expired, so all you have to do is take the ticket down and reclaim it.”

Thomas was a little surprised that Father seemed to have some idea how pawnshops worked. “And the money,” he reminded him.

“Yes, I’ll give you the money. But Mama is going to wonder what happened, and we can’t have her continuing to suspect Avery when we know she was uninvolved.”

Thomas thought he could have lived with Grandmamma _suspecting_ Avery, but it was clear that Father would not agree. 

“She won’t mind too much about the gambling,” Father continued, “and a mother using her jewels to cover a son’s debt is very ordinary—she did it for James at least once.”

“Really?” Thomas said, shocked.

“Yes—in that case it was a matter of a horse that cost four times what Papa had authorized him to spend.” He smiled. “These things happen. The usual method, however, is for the mother to explain all at some later point when the father is in a receptive mood.”

“Oh.”

“Quite,” Father said. “The part about Avery, I believe, we can explain with some combination of panic and misunderstanding—which is not, after all, _entirely_ untrue.” 

That sounded all right, and Thomas said so. 

That just left him with O’Brien. She might not actually kill him, particularly once it was clear that nothing was going to happen to either of them, but she was still going to be very angry. Unfortunately, Thomas knew he was on his own for that one.

#

Leaving Thomas holed up in his study—which, he explained, was the last place Sarah would think to look for him—Findlater climbed the stairs to beard Mama in her lair. 

He found that Mrs. Wallace had preceded him there, and the housekeeper was attempting to answer Mama’s questions about the afternoon’s events while at the same time evidencing the discretion that Findlater himself had asked for. 

“I can only think that it must have been some sort of misunderstanding, my lady,” she was saying when he entered.

“Indeed it was,” Findlater said. “Mama, you’ll be glad to know that Avery is entirely innocent.”

Thought Mama was reclining in her bed against a pile of pillows, she managed to give the impression of drawing herself up to her full height. “As I thought she must be,” she reminded him. “But what sort of misunderstanding could lead Thomas to Avery’s bedchamber?”

“As it turns out,” Findlater began carefully, “he knew what had happened to the necklace, and that she was not involved. But he you recall how alarmed he was by the prospect that she might suffer for having come under suspicion. He had some idea that something might be found in her room that, under the circumstances, would give a misleading impression of guilt, and—having little time to consider the situation—he thought it best to visit her room and remove any such misleading object.”

“Well,” Mrs. Wallace said, “if I may say so, my lord, my lady, that was a good-hearted impulse, if a bit poorly thought out.”

“I thought the same,” Findlater said, entirely truthfully. 

Mama, unfortunately, was not quite so easily satisfied as Mrs. Wallace. After the housekeeper had left, she pressed Findlater for details of exactly what had happened to the necklace. He explained the events as neutrally as he could. 

“Gaming?” she said. “You didn’t mention Thomas had a propensity for that.”

“Plenty of gentlemen gamble. I seem to recall that you were a terror of the whist table in your day.” 

“Yes, but it’s so unsuitable for the lower orders.”

“He isn’t part of the lower orders,” Findlater said firmly. “And in any case, he’s not accustomed to playing for the sort of stakes that are usual in Jimmy’s circle, and I gather he didn’t feel comfortable suggesting lower ones. Thrusting him into such a situation and expecting unimpeachable conduct is not entirely fair.” 

Mama changed the subject. “Surely you agree that it was wrong of the girl to sell Aunt Petunia’s necklace.”

“Only if you agree that it was wrong of you to sell your emerald earrings to pay for James’s horse.”

“That’s hardly the same. Those belonged to me, and I never liked them anyway.”

“Exactly as the necklace belonged to Sarah,” Findlater pointed out. “If you wanted to keep it, you shouldn’t have given it to her. She couldn’t have known that you considered it an object of sentimental value.” 

Mama, unused to being contradicted twice in the same conversation, fluttered her eyelids and said that she was very tired from all the worry. 

“I’ll leave you to rest, then,” Findlater said, rising. “It may ease your worry to know that we’ll be able to get the necklace back from the pawnshop.”

“Oh, that is good news.”

“Indeed. And, since it means so much to you, I’ll ask Sarah if she would mind letting you have it back.”

#

After several hours of hiding in Father’s study, Thomas ran out of cigarettes. He had nearly decided that venturing out couldn’t possibly be any worse than staying—there was absolutely nothing to distract himself with except agricultural journals and volumes of the estate diary, which stretched back over two centuries but discussed the same mind-numbing details of rents and crop rotation and livestock diseases for the entire period—and the lack of cigarettes was the final straw. 

He decided to try the library as the nearest source of cigarettes and diversion—his own room was further away and riskier, being on the same corridor as O’Brien’s. Unfortunately, she had apparently anticipated his train of thought, and pounced on him when he was still refilling his cigarette case.

“You rotten little sneak,” she greeted him. 

Clearly, she had learned something of what he’d done. “That’s what I was trying not to be, thanks.” 

“By selling out your own mum?”

“By not lying to my own dad.”

O’Brien swallowed hard and looked away. “I’ve always done me best by you. Even when I gave you up to George and Kathleen. I only wanted you to have a decent chance, and a real family.”

She wasn’t, Thomas realized, just hacked off because what he did could have gotten them both in trouble. She was angry—no, she was hurt—that he hadn’t followed her lead, like he always had. They’d never been mother and son, but they’d always been a team, when they were at Downton. Here, up until the problem with the necklace started, he hadn’t needed her for anything. He’d been busy with his new family and his new friends. O’Brien had encouraged that—it was all in aid of making a good impression on Father and Grandmamma—but it must have seemed like he was leaving her behind. “I know. I don’t…think you’re a bad mum, or anything like that. The thing is, I did have a real family. So I know what it’s like, and it’s not all this…lying and sneaking around.”

“Those people—your father and the old lady—they can’t understand what it’s been like, for us.”

“We haven’t exactly given them a chance to try, have we? And Father said he wants to. To try and be like he’s my dad.” 

O’Brien—mum—hesitated. “Let me have one of those.” She gestured towards the cigarette case in his hands.

He gave her on, and lit it for her. 

The request, Thomas knew, was a peace overture, a way of saying, ‘Let’s start over and pretend it never happened.’ But pretending it never happened wasn’t quite good enough. Not anymore. “It’s a bit late,” he said, “for us to be a proper family. But I think…we might be able to manage acting like we’re all on the same side. ‘Cause we are. Even you and Grandmamma are more alike than either of you knows. She wants me to make a success of this Lord Ogilvy business, so you’ve got that in common, at least. But if the four of us can work together, and keep the scheming for everybody else…we might be just about unstoppable.”

“Unstoppable, you say.” O’Brien tapped her cigarette into a crystal ashtray. “I like the sound of that.”

Over in the doorway, Father cleared his throat. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I…like the sound of that, too.”

It may have been, Thomas thought, the first time he’d had a serious talk with O’Brien without keeping watch over his shoulder to be sure they weren’t overheard. 

And maybe that was a good start. 

#

“He might be able to do better, yes,” Sarah said. “But there is a certain advantage to ensuring that Thomas doesn’t begin in a position of inferiority to his new in-laws. The Cunninghams will know that they ought to consider themselves lucky to have a title in the family.”

“I suppose there is something in that,” Mama agreed. “But I should wish to avoid the impression that Thomas cannot make a match on his own level.”

Across the table, Thomas caught Findlater’s eye and rolled his own slightly heavenwards. Findlater replied with a minute sympathetic nod.

Mama and Sarah had both taken to Thomas’s suggestion that they try to pull together in harness with some trepidation, and not a small amount of kicking, but when they managed to point themselves in the same direction, they proved to be an imposing pair. The direction upon which they most often agreed was that Thomas ought to be married as well and as soon as possible, and the subject tended to dominate any meal that the four of them took together. 

“You needn’t look so bored, Thomas,” Mama said. “It’s your own future we’re talking about, after all.”

“Yes, it is,” Findlater said. “Perhaps you should allow him to get a word in edgewise on occasion.”

“Men never know what they want when it comes to these things,” Mama said. “Perhaps we should continue this in the drawing room.”

Sarah agreed to the plan, and the two ladies went out. Thomas, once the dessert plates were cleared away and port and ash trays substituted, slumped in his chair with a heavy sigh. 

“There’s no hurry, you know,” Findlater said. “And there are plenty of nice young ladies around to choose from. If you don’t like any of the ones you’ve met, we can try the Edinburgh Season, or even London.” Not having been presented wouldn’t be the handicap for Thomas that it would be for a young lady. 

“It’s not just that,” Thomas said. He extracted a cigarette from his case and lit it, focusing intently on the task. “It might be a little more difficult than usual for me to produce an heir and a spare. For the same reason as you, I think.”

“What? I thought it was just your hand that was shot.”

“No,” Thomas yelped. “Not that. The…other reason.”

“Oh.” Understanding dawned. “You mean you’re….”

“Not the marrying kind, right.”

“That is a complication.” He considered his next words carefully. “Some men of our inclination find that they are able to…er, perform the necessary requirements, though without enthusiasm.” He had, after all. 

“Maybe,” Thomas said. “But I don’t think my wife would be fooled for long. And we did just decide to leave the scheming for people outside the family.”

“There is that.” And it was heartening that Thomas had sufficiently absorbed the lesson to be uncomfortable with a marriage based on a lie. He considered. “Mama is frightfully keen on the idea of you marrying, and I had rather hoped for grandchildren. As well, I must confess that the idea of the title becoming extinct is not a comfortable one. But we have escaped that fate by the narrowest of margins many times before. If our luck in that way has simply run out…well, it would be regrettable, and I hope we can find another way, but you needn’t make yourself miserable over it.”

“I did have one idea that might work,” Thomas said. “If we can find a girl who’s…what’s the polite way to say a girl who’s a bit bent?”

“Sapphically inclined,” Findlater said, beginning to see the light.

“One who’s like that, but doesn’t mind about having a kid or two. We could send for one of those suffragette pamphlets on family limitation, and do the opposite of what it says. Then once it’s born, she can hand it over to a nurse and do what she likes.”

That did sound like an almost ideal solution. “Did you have a young woman in mind?” Findlater asked hopefully.

“No, that’s the hard part. And I’m not sure why she’d want to put up with all that anyway, since a woman doesn’t need an heir.” 

“There are advantages to the married state for a woman like that,” Findlater pointed out, “even if they don’t need to fear two years at hard labor. Not only the appearance of respectability, but a household of her own, an income, independence from her parents—and the vote, as well. Your wife would certainly be a qualified elector under the new act. Yes, I can definitely see the right individual viewing the arrangement as mutually beneficial. If we can only locate the right individual.”

“Mum already knows about me, but I don’t think we can really put it to Grandmamma.” There was a hint of a question in Thomas’s voice.

“No,” he agreed. “Not in so many words. But there have always been men in our family who are not particularly interested in marriage, so the idea of a marriage of convenience should not be a shocking one. We might suggest that you consider yourself more temperamentally inclined to bachelorhood, and would be happiest with a wife who would pursue interests of her own once the necessities are dispensed with. That sort of thing should put her on the trail of what you have in mind.” 

“You really think it could work, then?”

“It could,” Findlater said. “And Mama carries on an extensive correspondence with fire-breathing ladies of a certain age throughout the United Kingdom. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them has a granddaughter or grand-niece whom she despairs of in precisely that way.”

“Well.” Thomas looked more relieved than he ever had during any conversation on the subject of marriage. “Cheers, then,” he said, lifting his glass of port.

 

**Epilogue**

Nearly a year later, on the twelfth of August, Thomas and his father walked out in a misty morning with shotguns broken over their arms. 

“Bit of a change from last year,” Father said, nodding toward the rest of the party, which was smaller and more companionable than last year’s set. 

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “I’m glad we stuck to our guns.” Grandmamma had wanted, if anything, something even grander than the previous year, but with Father in his corner, Thomas had been able to insist on something more to his own liking. They’d asked Guilford and Jack Courtenay back—Thomas had seen them again at other parties throughout the winter, and had decided he quite liked them—along with Walter, Polly, and a few others of his friends. 

“And I think that might be a good sign,” he added, nodding towards Lizzie Chatham, whose inclusion in the party Grandmamma had suggested. This morning she had caused a mild sensation by appearing at breakfast in breeches and tweed, and stating that she intended to take part in the shooting. 

“It might,” Thomas agreed. He had encountered her a few times before—the Chathams lived in the next county over—but he now suspected it might be worthwhile to pursue a closer acquaintance. Grandmamma’s earlier suggestions had not borne fruit, but this one certainly looked promising. 

“And you don’t mind the shooting too much, do you?”

“No, it’s all right. Gets a little boring after three days of nothing else, but I don’t mind it.” In deference to tradition, they were shooting today, and another morning later in the week, but had planned other things for the rest of the time—some riding, an exploration of the next county by motor, and a day in Edinburgh. Walter and Polly had brought their portable gramophone and jazz records for a small dance the second night. Thomas was quite looking forward to it.


End file.
